


Losing Sleep

by cytheriafalas



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set immediately after Force Awakens, all spoilers are fair game, with EU/Legends influences. A squad of TIE fighters approach the Resistance base on D'Qar and Poe leads the counterattack. His X-wing is damaged and he wakes up to find himself held prisoner in a Star Destroyer with a First Order officer and an Imperial interrogation droid for company.</p><p>It may look like I've abandoned this, but I promise you, I haven't. My life got very intense the last few months and all kinds of writing, except for quick one-offs, has gotten pushed far, far aside. I will finish this, and I'm not abandoning it. I promise.</p><p>Also, if you want to follow me (and my life, which can be confusing), I'm fangirlingtendencies at tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Poe’s eyes opened onto harsh artificial light. He didn’t know where he was. He remembered flying his X-wing. He remembered Jessika shouting in his ear. Snap yelling something. And then nothing. Just a hazy sensation of pain that coalesced into a single, burning point in his left shoulder. His arms and legs were bound to a chair, and an old Imperial interrogation droid hovered innocently off to the side.

The First Order had him, then. He wished he could remember just what had brought him here.

The door behind him opened and for a moment Poe thought Kylo Ren would appear in front of him to rip thoughts from his mind. But it was just a First Order officer. He didn’t even spare Poe a glance, bending over the interrogation droid and fiddling with it. After a moment it hummed to life.

Poe’s mouth went dry. Drier than it already had been. He’d heard stories of interrogation droids. General Organa said there weren’t many around. They had been illegal even during the war with the Empire, but once the New Republic won the Battle of Jakku and secured their position as the primary power in the galaxy, they’d rounded up as many of them they could find and destroyed them. She wasn’t one for telling stories, but sometimes over the years someone had managed to get her to tell the story of her rescue and the memory of the pain seemed nearly as fresh now as it had then.

The officer finally looked Poe over, but didn’t say anything. The droid hovered into position in front of Poe, extending the first of its instruments. Poe gritted his teeth. He’d been in the Order’s hands before, and it had taken Kylo Ren to get any information from him. They wouldn’t break him.

Poe Dameron screamed.

 

_“When was the last time you got any sleep, Dameron?”_

_Poe jumped. He’d been so focused on the bed in front of him, the steady rise and fall of Finn’s chest, that he hadn’t heard anybody coming. He turned to see General Organa approaching with steady, measured footsteps. She looked as exhausted as he felt, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but clear. Guilt flared briefly in Poe’s chest._

_He’d been too panicked when Chewbacca carried Finn’s body to realize that Han hadn’t disembarked with the rest of them. And then it had been such a rush getting Rey and Chewbacca in the air, flybys to search for any survivors, and sitting by Finn’s bedside. He’d never offered his condolences._

_“General, I—“_

_General Organa’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “How is he?”_

_“No change, ma’am.”_

_She took the seat at Poe’s side and looked over Finn. Poe took the opportunity to watch her. She was so steady. He felt like he was drifting, lost in space, thrown out of hyperspace by an Interdictor’s gravity well._

_“I’ve sat by a lot of these beds and a lot of bacta tanks.” The general’s voice was quiet, and Poe didn’t think she was seeing Finn lying on the bed. He didn’t know who she was looking at, but she reached out to brush her hand across Finn’s forehead as though pushing hair aside. “It isn’t easy. And it never gets any easier.”_

 

He tasted blood. He tried to spit it out, but he could barely coordinate his muscles to lift his head, much less something as complicated as spitting. Eventually he managed it. Mostly.

His throat was raw. His body ached.

“And he’s awake.”

Poe blinked his eyes open. That same First Order officer sat before him, booted feet crossed. He looked harmless, really, none of the frantic devotion Poe usually saw in the First Order.

“You’re aboard the Star Destroyer _Suppression_.”

He remembered then. Snap had been warning him about the Star Destroyer exiting hyperspace just behind him on the fringes of the battle. BB-8 had already been wailing warnings, but it had been too late. He’d been committed to his run and there had been no time. The first shots strafed across his canopy and tore into his S-foils. He’d been unable to fight back and out of control.

He’d ejected. And then nothing.

“The rest of your Resistance scattered when we destroyed your X-wing. We figured we had someone important then.”

“And the rest of them?” That hardly sounded like his voice.

“Most of them survived. We caught a couple as they tried to jump to hyperspace, but don’t expect some heroic rescue. They think you’re dead.”

If they wouldn’t rescue him, he’d have to rescue himself. Poe shrugged. His shrug turned into a groan. He’d forgotten about his shoulder in the general haze of pain, but it blazed back into his awareness. His vision darkened for a few painful heartbeats.

During that darkness, he heard footsteps and then felt warm breath on his cheek. “You broke your shoulder after you ejected. Our medical droids say the whole joint is shattered. You won’t be doing much with that arm for a while.”

And then a hand grabbed his shoulder and Poe’s entire world went black.

 

_“How do you keep doing this?”_

_Sitting by beds wasn’t new to him. He’d sat by plenty of his pilots and watched them die or wake up. But it got worse every time. And now it was Finn and his chest ached._

_“You do it because you have to. The Resistance needs its general, just like the Rebellion needed its princess. Luke did it because we needed him.” And Poe wondered whose bed Luke had sat beside. “And Han… Han did it for love.”_

_General Organa rose to her feet. She must have been as exhausted as he was. Exhausted and grief-stricken and she hadn’t had time to mourn._

_“Do try to get some sleep, Poe. We don’t do them any good like this.”_

_He tried to smile in her direction, but he couldn’t quite manage it. He waited until her footsteps faded to drop his forehead into his hands, knotting his fingers in his hair. He’d spent only a few hours in Finn’s presence, but something had changed in those hours._

_Poe let out a shaking breath and let his hands fall back down to his side. He would sit and wait and watch and eventually Finn would wake up. Or he would die. And Poe would tear the First Order down himself if he had to._

 

He hurt less when he woke up. Sort of. All of the pain was focused in his left shoulder. The rest of him was sore, but not uncomfortably so, although a quick rundown of his pains wasn’t exactly encouraging. Even if he could escape, unlikely while he was bound to this chair, he had no idea where in the Star Destroyer he was or how well his body would hold up. He doubted it would last very long.

A quiet humming filled the room and Poe’s breath caught in his chest. General Organa had said she could still hear the sound the interrogation droid had made, and Poe began to understand why.

“Now, normally we don’t allow our subjects the relief of unconsciousness when we question them.”

“Two problems with that statement. First: I think ‘subject’ implies agreeing to this procedure. Second: You haven’t asked me a single question yet.”

The officer walked into Poe’s line of vision, the droid overing at his shoulder. “And I don’t intend to yet. We’re just getting you comfortable.”

“You and I have very different definitions of the word ‘comfortable.’”

The officer shrugged and sat back in his seat. He crossed his legs and looked at the droid. “Begin.”

 

_Beeping, blipping medical droids scurried toward Finn’s bed, startling Poe awake. For a moment, Poe’s heart stopped, but the droids didn’t seem to be beginning resuscitation on Finn. And there was a faint groan that could only have come from a human mouth._

_Poe lurched forward to grab Finn’s hand, knocking one of the droids aside. It bleeped at him in annoyance, then moved to the other side of the bed to complete its business._

_“Finn? Can you hear me?”_

_Finn frowned and his head tilted toward Poe’s voice._

_“Hey, it’s me. Finn? Can you hear me?”_

_Finn’s eyelids flickered, then opened. He looked around for a moment, staring up at the light and one of the droids above him, then he focused on Poe’s face. He stayed silent long enough that Poe began to fear the doctors and medical droids had missed neuro damage._

_“Poe?”_

_Poe let out a relieved laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. You had us worried.”_

_“Where…” Finn frowned, looking around again. “Where am I?”_

_“The Resistance base on D’Qar.”_

_Finn rubbed his forehead, whether to comfort an ache or to try help remember, Poe wasn’t sure. “How did I get here? The last thing I remember—“ He sat up so quickly a medical droid blipped in alarm. “Rey. Where is Rey?”_

_Poe caught Finn around the shoulders just as he sagged. “Not here.” Finn tensed again and Poe hastily shook his head. “No, no. She’s okay. She’s fine. She beat Ren.” Poe hesitated, unsure what Finn would think of the next information, but he supposed it was better he hear it now. “She’s off to find Skywalker.”_

_Finn let Poe ease back back down onto the bed. “Alone?”_

_“Chewbacca’s with her. They took the_ Falcon _.”_

_Dr. Kalonia walked in then, and Poe was escorted firmly but politely from the room._

 

The focus of pain this time seemed to be lines on his arms and legs. Poe dragged his eyes open, acutely aware of how much harder it was than it had been even the last time he’d been awake. He managed to glance down at his right arm, where he saw open gashes beneath the restraints. He must have torn his skin open while the droid tortured him. It was difficult to see his legs without moving his head, which was beyond him at the moment, but he managed to catch a glimpse of blood seeping through his pants beneath the cold metal.

He couldn’t hear the interrogation droid or the sound of the officer’s footsteps. Just as he was beginning to breathe easier, the door hissed open behind him. He flinched at the sound.

“Oh, good. You’re awake.”

That… That definitely wasn’t the officer’s voice. A woman rounded his chair and came into view in front of him. She had a severe face and was dressed as a First Order soldier, but he couldn’t see anything identifying rank. She set a tray down on the chair the officer had been sitting in and held up a commlink. Poe eyed it warily.

“I’m going to unhook your right arm. The rest of the restraints aren’t going anywhere, so don’t get any ideas. And if I don’t check in on this within three minutes, the Stormtroopers come, and you’re going to wish you were back with Grandel. We clear?”

Poe nodded. He wasn’t sure where this was going. The tray smelled like food. He hoped it was food. The woman keyed something into the panel on the wall and the restraints on his right arm loosened and then snapped open. His arm was heavy when he tried to lift it.

The woman watched him, then rolled a table up to the edge of his chair. The table was just high enough for Poe to reach without stretching far. She set the tray down and took off the cover. It wasn’t appetizing. Bread and water. A few pieces of a ration bar. But it was food.

“I’m not feeding you. If you can’t feed yourself, you’re not eating.”

It was a lot of work coordinating his muscles to do what he needed them to do, especially as his left shoulder burnt with pain every time he moved it. But he managed to close a shaking hand on the bread and bring it to his mouth. It was stale, probably kept just for prisoners, but it was food.

“How long have I been here?” he asked between bites.

The woman pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Four days. You were out for most of the first two.”

Four days? Poe’s stomach sank. Even if they’d been searching for him, the Resistance had limited resources. And if they were waiting on Rey to find Skywalker, their resources would be expended toward that goal. His squadron probably thought he was dead.

“Don’t look so upset. It would break Grandel’s heart to find out the first person to get any reaction from you wasn’t him.”

“Who are you?”

She _tsk_ ’ed. “Don’t try that with me. You’re not going to flash those pretty brown eyes at me and suddenly I’ll be swooning at your feet. Resistance scum isn’t my style.”

That pretty much ended that tactic right there. It had worked before. Not on the First Order, but this was hardly the first trouble he’d gotten himself into.

Poe ate as much as he could, but eventually his weakness overcame his hunger. The woman shoved his arm back into position and the restraining bands swung back in place. She did hold the water for him to drink, but once that was finished, she kicked the table out of his reach and gathered up the tray.

“Get some rest. Grandel’s not finished with you.”

Poe had to admit that at least when he’d blacked out from the pain, time passed more quickly. All he could do was tug at his restraints until either his strength gave out or he tired of the pain. Then he could doze or stare about the room hoping to find something useful to his eventual escape. He found nothing, and he couldn’t manage to find any true sleep through the pain.

It was during one of these intermittent naps that the interrogation droid hummed back to life and Poe barely had time to open his eyes before the agony started.

 

_When they finally let Poe back into the room, Finn had been dressed in clean clothes and was sitting up in bed. Poe’s jacket—Finn’s jacket, really—was draped across his knees. His finger ran the length of the burn on the back. He looked up when the door shut behind Poe._

_“I ruined your jacket.”_

_Poe grinned, torn between relief that Finn was alive and amusement that he was still fixated on that jacket. “They said if the lightsaber had gone any deeper, you might not have survived the trip back. It was close enough as it is. If that jacket helped at all, then I’m glad you had it.”_

_Finn’s hand tightened on the fabric, then he smoothed it out again._

_“Rey’s really okay?”_

_“She’s fine. Whatever happened with Ren shook her up, but physically there’s nothing wrong with her. How are you?”_

_“Physically?”_

_Poe grimaced, then took the seat across from Finn. “You and Solo were close?”_

_“Not really. I… admired him I guess. He shouldn’t have died.”_

_“I’ve been where you are. I’ve sat in that bed and listened to Snap tell me how many of my fighters I’ve lost. You play the fight back. You go over sensor logs. You find the second you could have pulled up or banked or done something. But you’ve gotta remember, it’s their choice. I lost a lot of good people above the Starkiller, but we saved more. And every single one I lost made the choice to be there. Solo made a choice to go after Ren.” Something Skywalker had said to him as a child came back to him. “There’s always a balance.”_

_“I was trained to do this.” Finn looked back down at the jacket and spread his hands across the burn. Poe reached out to stop him, his fingers pressing against the back of Finn’s wrist. Finn’s hands stilled. “This was the only thing I was trained for, but I don’t know what to do. I’m useless to the Resistance.”_

_Poe curled his fingers around Finn’s wrist, feeling the steady beat of Finn’s heart against his fingertips. “You’re not useless to us. More of us would have died without you. I would have died on the_ Finalizer _.”_

_Finn looked up at Poe like that hadn’t occurred to him._

 

Poe’s face burned and his neck ached. The First Order officer, Grandel, had decided the interrogation droid was too impersonal and had decided to transition to a more hands-on activity. Blood dripped into Poe’s eye. He blinked it away, but he saw Grandel and the interrogation droid through a reddish film. He hoped that was blood from his forehead, not something wrong with his eye.

A fist cracked across Poe’s cheek and more pain bloomed there. He tasted blood. When he spat it out, most of it dribbled down his chin like a child learning how to eat. He was too tired to be ashamed.

Grandel stood back, rubbing his chin as though examining a purchase. Then he nodded.

“Good. Now that we’re friends—“

Poe snorted out a laugh that hurt more than it should have.

“And that you can still laugh, we’re going to talk. Your name.”

“Poe Dameron.”

The officer smiled. It made Poe faintly queasy. “See how easy that is? Now, you stole some property from the First Order, and we want it back.”

“I’ve stolen a lot of things from the First Order.”

Grandel nodded toward the interrogation droid. It floated to Poe, and a sharp shock of pain raced through his entire body.

When the pain finally faded enough for Poe to see straight, still through that veil of red, Grandel approached again. “You’ve stolen something from us, and we want it back.”

Poe met Grandel’s eyes. There was nothing in them. Not a breath of discomfort of what he was doing to another human.

“I believe your people named it ‘Finn.’”

“I don’t know any ‘its’ named Finn,” Poe spat. “I know a man named one.”

“You know a broken Stormtrooper named Finn. Hardly a man. Where is he?”

Steeling himself for agony, Poe said, “You’ve kept me here for a week. How should I know where he is?”

“A week and a half.”

Poe didn’t have time to try to identify the blank spots in his memory before the interrogation droid started its work. He screamed and screamed and screamed and the respite of darkness never came.

 

_They’d confined Finn to bed for a few more days. Without access to a bacta tank, their options were limited. But Dr. Kalonia had finally cleared him to walk around, as long as he had help and went slowly. Poe had enthusiastically volunteered to be that help. He didn’t quite regret his decision, but his enthusiasm was dimmed on their third lap around the interior of the base. Finn was_ heavy _._

_“Is there a place outside we can sit?” Finn asked in his ear as they passed the hospital wing again._

_Deliberatelynot sighing with relief, Poe said, “There’s a bench near the door. And there’s someone out there who probably wants to say hi to you.”_

_Poe had spent enough time in the hospital wing over the last weeks that he could have found his way asleep, and more than once he’d stumbled there from his X-wing half asleep. It wasn’t a long trip, but he was grateful to settle Finn down onto the bench and sit beside him._

_Finn stared out onto the landing field, maybe intuitively making the same count Poe made every time he looked out there. Half the fleet, gone. Half his friends, dead above a cold planet. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Finn was seeing Kylo Ren cut down Han Solo again and again and again._

_He had been young when Solo left, but his death still hurt._

 

Poe had lost track of time. He’d screamed until he tasted blood, whether from his throat or biting his lips he couldn’t tell. Shocks of pain still trailed through Poe’s limbs, his hands clenching and unclenching compulsively as his muscles contracted with the pain. There were tears on his cheeks, although when he’d started crying, he had no idea.

Grandel was gone and the interrogation droid was inactive in the corner. Grandel had asked again and again about Finn, about where he was, about whether he’d survived the Starkiller base. Poe had held out. They hadn’t broken him yet. They wouldn’t break him. Not about the Resistance, and not about Finn.

He’d begged for the pain to stop. He knew that much. It hadn’t taken long for that first, desperate _please_.

But he _hurt_. He didn’t know how much more his body could take. They’d fed him occasionally, given him enough water to keep him alive, but it was getting harder to stay awake.

Sagging against his restraints, Poe closed his eyes and lost his battle against unconsciousness.

 

_A familiar warbling wail sounded across the field from the direction of Poe’s fighter. BB-8 rolled up to their feet, beeping so rapidly it took Poe a second to understand what he was saying._

_“He says he’s glad you’re awake. He was worried you had been…” Poe frowned at the astromech droid, “…decommissioned. Beebee, I don’t think ‘decommissioned’ means what—“_

_BB-8 warbled that he knew exactly what ‘decommissioned’ meant, thank you very much, and he had meant ‘decommissioned,’ then turned his attention back to Finn._

_“Hey, Beebee. I’m okay. Sorry if I worried you.”_

_BB-8 whistled, then twisted his head to look at Poe, waiting for the translation. Poe rolled his eyes, nudging BB-8 gently with his toe. “He says humans are too fragile to be used in space and ought to keep their feet on the ground. Enough of that. You’d be stuck on the ground, too, if we were.”_

_His droid hummed something that Poe couldn’t translate directly, but held a distinct sense of superiority._

_“You spent too much time with Artoo.”_

_BB-8 whistled his offense, and Finn laughed. Poe didn’t have time to revel in that sound, already turning toward the sound of running footsteps and a woman shouting his name._

_“Poe!”_

_“Jessika, what’s wrong?”_

_“TIE fighters. Headed our way.”_

_“Are they coming for us?”_

_“They’re not in attack formation yet, and they look casual.”_

_“Too casual for Stormtroopers,” Poe guessed._

_Jessika nodded. “The general said it’s your call.”_

_“Scramble the fighters. Beebee-ate, go. I’ll meet you at the X-wing.” Jessika was already running toward the landing field, speaking into a commlink. BB-8 was rolling just behind her. “Finn—“_

_“Go. I can get myself back to the hospital. Be safe out there.”_

 

The door hissed open behind him and Poe jerked back to wakefulness. Footsteps, more than just Grandel. Heavy footsteps. Stormtroopers. Those tingles of pain still coursed through his body. He needed more time; he wasn’t ready. Poe shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. If he couldn’t see them, it wasn’t real.

“No, no, no.” He tried to bite his lips to keep the words from coming. “Don’t. Please, don’t.”

“Poe!”

Poe recoiled as far as he could against the chair, but there wasn’t anywhere he could go. Something in his shoulder snapped. Some delicate healing that had begun in the nearly two weeks he’d been immobile, undone. He couldn’t stop the quiet cry of pain. Everything hurt now. He wouldn’t talk. They couldn’t break him. But he hurt so much.

“Poe, it’s me!”

Poe shook his head. He wouldn’t talk.

“Should we slap him?” A new voice.

“Why would slapping him help?”

“Move aside.” Another new voice. A gentle hand on his temple, a command, quiet but inexorable. “Open your eyes, Poe Dameron.”

He did. An older man looked back at him, bright blue eyes compassionate and familiar.

“There we go.”

“Skywalker?” The word was out before Poe had even realized whom he was looking at.

“You were just a child last time I saw you on Yavin 4. Rey, the controls, if you would.”

There was a _snap-hiss_ from somewhere behind him and the restraints opened. Freed from their support, Poe’s knees crumpled. An arm in white armor caught him. Poe’s eyes followed the arm to the shoulder and then to the helmet. “Finn?”

The Stormtrooper nodded. “Never thought I’d be wearing this again.”

“You shouldn’t be here. They’re looking for you.”

“The Resistance is keeping everyone busy right now, but we need to move,” Rey said. “Chewie?”

The Wookiee maneuvered in front of the chair and, looking Poe over, made a warbling noise.

“He asked if anywhere was hurt.”

Poe could have kept them there an hour listing every way he hurt. “My left shoulder is broken.”

Chewbacca said something again and Rey shook her head. “Just do the best you can.”

Chewbacca handed his weapon off to Finn, then bent to lift Poe out of the chair. He pressed Poe’s broken shoulder against his chest, but once he was stabilized there, the pain eased a tiny bit. Just enough for Poe to let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.

“Okay, let’s go,” Rey said.

They rounded the corner and Poe flinched. The Wookiee stopped, looking down at him curiously. He looked around, then said something.

Skywalker reached for the weapon at his side and with a _snap-hiss_ , the same noise Rey’s weapon had made, ignited a glowing green blade. He took two steps toward the interrogation droid and sliced it in half. The blade retracted as both pieces of the droid tumbled to the ground with dull clangs.

“You can rest now,” Skywalker said. There was no suggestion behind his words, but Poe could no more resist now than he could have when Skywalker told him to open his eyes.

 

_Poe grinned at Finn and waved at him as he ran by. Finn gave him a thumbs-up that Poe had to assume was for good luck, but then Poe was in the middle of the landing field, X-wings humming to life all around him._ Black One _was waiting, BB-8 already in place. Snap was standing by his T-70, accepting a bottle of water from one of the young pilots, too young to fight._

_“Did you just get back?”_

_Snap nodded, brushing sweat-slicked hair out of his face. “I picked up the TIE fighters on my last sweep.”_

_“How long have you been out?”_

_Snap shrugged, either to say he didn’t know or to forestall Poe’s question of exhaustion. Poe would have liked to get an answer, but the last of the squads were forming up and there was no more time. He climbed up into_ Black One _and settled in._

_“How are we doing, Beebee?”_

_BB-8’s answer scrolled across in front of him. “We’re ready, Poe.”_

_Switching his commlink on, Poe said, “All right! We’re following Snap on this one. Snap, you ready?”_

_And then they were up in the air, Blue and Red Squadrons checking in as they exited the atmosphere. Snap flew point; Poe took his place just off the lead wing._

_They engaged with the TIE fighters only a few minutes from the planet. They were evenly matched in numbers, which meant Blue Squadron had the clear advantage. Poe had sent one of the fighters back to the planet after a lucky shot by one of the TIE fighters had damaged her engines, but there hadn’t been a single casualty on their side, and there were only a handful of TIE fighters left—_

_“Black One, break off!”_

_Poe reacted, diving down as bolts of light streaked past where he had been. “What the hell was that?”_

_“Star Destroyer! Poe, look out—“_

_A sickening_ crunch _just past his ear and BB-8’s warnings scrolling so quickly on his display that Poe couldn’t keep up. What he could see was clear enough. “Beebee, take care of yourself.”_

_Poe punched for ejection just as his X-wing began to tear itself up. He felt the rush of flame before it was extinguished in the dead of space. And then a searing pain in his left shoulder; something sent him spinning; and darkness._

 

Poe sat up, gasping in lungfuls of blessed oxygen. A hand pressed to the center of his chest, easing him back down. “You’re safe, Poe. You’re on the _Millennium Falcon_. We’re just about to land on D’Qar.”

Looking at Rey’s face, Poe began to remember what had happened. “Is everyone okay?”

Rey smiled at him. “Yeah, we’re all fine. Not so much as a singed hair. Finn’s up front with Chewbacca. It’s about time he learn how to fly something, and there’s a distinct lack of enemy fire coming into the Resistance base.”

“My shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Oh, well, it will,” Rey promised. “Master Skywalker knew some sort of pain-relieving Force thing to help you sleep. You looked like you needed it. It’s not fixed. You just can’t feel that it hurts.”

Poe shrugged with his right shoulder. Despite the lack of pain, his left shoulder didn’t seem to respond like it should. The sound of the engines changed and a few moments later they bumped down onto the landing field. Rey rolled her eyes, then held her hand out for Poe to take.

“C’mon. Do you feel strong enough to walk?”

He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. Testing the weight gingerly, he grimaced. “Not far.”

“Finn!” Rey shouted. Poe rubbed at his ear ruefully.

There was a clattering and a shouted apology and Finn appeared in the doorway, half out of breath and still in the black Stormtrooper under-armor. “What’s wrong?”

Rey grinned at Poe, winked, and held Poe’s hand out for Finn to take. “Help him walk. I need to make sure you didn’t break anything in that landing of yours.”

Finn gaped after her, but ducked beneath Poe’s right arm, slipping his left arm around Poe’s waist. “Does this hurt?”

Poe shook his head, blinking away sudden dizziness that he didn’t think had anything to do with the Star Destroyer. “No. But from what Rey says, I won’t feel anything for a while.”

Together they worked their way to the _Falcon_ ’s ramp. It was a slow process, much slower than Poe would have liked, not even hurried much when Skywalker joined Finn on Poe’s other side. Chewbacca was waiting at them at the top of the lowered ramp. He looked them over and seemed to roll his eyes, roaring something.

Skywalker’s lips twitched. “He wants to know if you want him to carry you.”

“Yeah, no. I’m good, thanks.”

Another roar. “He says to let him know if you change your mind.”

Being carried out of the _Falcon_ by a Wookie while fully conscious wasn’t quite the homecoming Poe had had in mind. The dip as the ramp began its descent nearly took his feet out from under him, and Poe looked down, focusing on where each foot had to go to keep from falling to his knees. He didn’t think even Skywalker’s magic pain-relieving Force trick would keep that much pain away. This was more complicated in the planet’s night than he thought it should have been.

He was nearly to the ground when he heard the cacophony of voices approaching and, among them, a familiar wail. Poe came to a stop so suddenly Finn nearly continued on without him.

“ _Beebee_?”

“He’s here,” Rey said. “They’re still working on repairing him. He’s not quite as fast as he used to be, but they’ll get him there.”

“He’s the reason we knew you were alive,” Finn said quietly in Poe’s ear. “We thought you were dead. Your X-wing was gone. Snap saw you eject, but then we couldn’t find any trace of you. One of Red Squadron brought him in and he kept insisting the Star Destroyer had taken you.”

They’d reached the base of the ramp and finally the little orange-and-white droid reached them. Poe squeezed Finn’s shoulder, the only part of him he could reach. “Can I?” He nodded toward BB-8.

“Yeah, sure. Rey, can you help me?”

Between Skywalker, Rey, and Finn they lowered him to his knees in front of BB-8. Poe put his hand on the scar across the side of BB-8’s side. “I’m so sorry.”

BB-8 whistled inquisitively.

“I should have been paying attention.”

BB-8 whistled again, this time conveying both amusement and satisfaction that Poe was alive. Poe bowed his head over his little droid. After a moment, Skywalker put a hand on Poe’s right shoulder.

“We should get you to the doctors. Beebee—“

BB-8 squalled a sharp response, but Skywalker smiled down at him. “I wasn’t going to send you away. I was going to say you should go get yourself settled in his room. It’ll take us a little while to get there.”

There was a moment of silence, then BB-8 blipped once and began rolling off toward the main door. He moved more slowly than he had before they’d flown off, and a little bit more crookedly—he had to keep adjusting his course to stay straight—but Poe had thought his droid had died with _Black One_.

The three of them helped Poe back to his feet. He sagged against Finn, exhausted. Whatever Skywalker had done to him was wearing off fast.

“Come on,” Finn murmured, arm tight around Poe’s waist. “You’re not going to let the doctors carry you in, are you?” Poe shook his head. “Let’s get you inside. You can collapse then.”

Poe tried to keep track of faces as he passed by. Red and Blue Squadrons had lined up on either side of the ramp. Some faces were missing. Jessika and Snap were there. General Organa had appeared from somewhere and was conferring with her brother in a low voice.

“We’re almost there, Poe,” Finn said. “Come on. They’ve got a carrier waiting for you inside.”

He was exhausted. He could barely lift his feet, but Finn kept murmuring encouragement in his ear. Rey was at his other side, not quite touching him, but clearly ready to swoop in if his knees gave out on him.

They passed from the darkness to the artificial lights of the interior. Finn hadn’t been wrong. What seemed to be an entire cadre of doctors waited just inside. They took him from Finn and laid him out on the carrier, and Poe let his eyes close.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick ysalamir cameo and Poe doesn't know how to cope with trauma.

“…Think he’ll be okay?”

“He’ll be fine.”

 

_Everything was dark. He was swimming in blackness and shudders of remembered pain and the cold of space, but for a single point. His right hand was warm. Sometimes that warmth spread across his forehead or cheek._

 

“We’ll have another T-70 for you when you wake up. I know you loved _Black One_ …”

 

_He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids were too heavy._

 

“We should have been more careful.”

“We couldn’t have known.”

 

_Whatever limited consciousness he held onto was enough to tell him time was passing._

 

A quiet, beeping whine.

“He’ll be fine.”

 

_The agony in his shoulder spiked._

 

“Sshh, it’ll be okay. They’re almost done.”

 

_The pain faded. The darkness in which he floundered lightened somehow, a diffuse light from a star behind him after dropping out of hyperspace. Nothing in front to direct him._

 

“Do you think he’ll wake up soon?”

“He’s waking up now.”

“How can you tell?”

A quiet laugh. “I can tell. Give him a few seconds. He’ll come around.”

The warmth left Poe’s right hand and he shuddered, reaching out for that warmth, whatever it had been. It came back.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Poe fought to open his eyes and figure out what was going on. He remembered agony, D’Qar, the lines of his pilots to greet them, BB-8 rolling up to his feet. He remembered Finn practically carrying him and then more darkness.

That darkness terrified him. It wasn’t the soothing darkness of space or the calm dark of sleep. Something lurked in that darkness, something malevolent and he ached in remembered pain.

A different warmth on his forehead.

“Listen to my voice, Poe. You’re safe now. You know who I am; you trusted me when you were a child. I promise you, you are safe.”

Some of the panic receded. He was safe. He was on the Resistance base. The hand on his forehead belonged to Luke Skywalker. The weight on his eyelids seemed to ease and his eyes opened.

Skywalker smiled down at him. “I’m going to go tell the doctor you’re awake and retrieve BB-8 from repairs.”

Then Poe looked past Skywalker’s shoulder and met Finn’s eyes and he didn’t even notice the Jedi Master leaving the room. Finn looked _distraught_ and Poe couldn’t figure out why.

“What’s wrong?” Poe asked.

“What’s wrong?” Finn echoed. “What’s _wrong_? Poe… Why didn’t you just tell them where I was?”

He didn’t ask how Finn had found out what the First Order wanted. It took too much energy to even begin to formulate that question.

Poe shrugged, then grimaced. His shoulder was still sore, but it didn’t seem to be broken anymore. “Because…” He tried to push himself up, but broken or not, his left arm still wasn’t strong enough to support him. Finn helped slide the bed into an upright position and got him seated. The effort left him out of breath. He was weaker than he’d expected to be, based on his previous times in these beds.

“Because I wasn’t going to. Because you’re not FN-28-whatever. Because you _made a choice_ and I am not willing to barter your life for mine.”

Finn gaped at him, then slid a chair closer to Poe’s bed. He took Poe’s hand absently, and Poe suddenly recognized the warmth he’d felt in the darkness. There were thick callouses on Finn’s hand. Poe wasn’t exactly a stranger to calloused hands, but most of the ones he’d felt had been rough in the same way his were—a starpilot’s callouses from fixing engines and controlling an X-wing—not of hands that held weapons.

“They could have killed you,” Finn said quietly.

“They would have killed you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You think that ‘reprogramming’ or whatever it is they do to rogue Stormtroopers is any different than dying?” Finn looked uncomfortable and Poe gently extricated his hand. Finn was wearing that jacket again and Poe ran a hand down the familiar leather. “You’re wearing a jacket with a rip down the back.”

“The pilots took turns fixing it. General Organa had to ground some of them during the search or they wouldn’t have landed or slept or eaten anything but ration bars. It doesn’t look quite right but I didn’t want to just throw it away. Especially if…” Finn flexed his fingers. “You should have just told them where I was.”

“Finn—“

A wave of pain hit him just then. He cut off with a groan, hands clenching until his fingernails drew blood from his palms. That sensation grounded him for a few seconds, but not long enough.

Then there were footsteps and medical droids and doctors and Poe sank back into unconsciousness.

 

_It was dark again. It was dark and there was a humming noise from somewhere over his left shoulder._

_It was dark and he was cold and his hands were shaking._

_He was floating in the dead of space and he was alone and he couldn’t breathe._

_There were hands restraining him and a voice in his ear but he couldn’t breathe._

“Come here. Put your hand on him.”

“But I can’t use the Force.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

_A single point of warmth against his forehead._

“Speak to him.”

“Poe?”

“Tell him he’s safe. Tell him you’re here.”

_That warmth left for a moment and Poe was drowning again. Then it was back._

“You’re okay. You’re safe on D’Qar with me. Poe? Can you hear me?”

“He hears you.”

_Warmth on his hand._

 

Poe ached when he woke up. Not the nightmarish ache of an encounter with an interrogation droid, but the ache of a restless sleep and stiff muscles. He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t quite summon the strength. He collapsed back to his bed with a groan.

“Dr. Kalonia said you would be weak for a while,” Finn said from the doorway. He was leaning back against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. “She also said if her previous experience with you was any indication, you would hate it. How many times have you ended up in the med wing?”

“Enough.”

Finn snorted, but came to his side. He helped raise the bed and ease Poe into a sitting position.

“Another couple of days at most, and then you can be moved into your own room.”

“I need to get out with my pilots. If the First Order could get that close—”

“Not anytime soon. You’ve been grounded at least until they find another X-wing for you.”

Logically, Poe knew _Black One_ had just been a T-70 X-wing, and any of the modifications he’d made to _Black One_ he could make to any X-wing he got his hands on, but his stomach still twisted at the memory of his ship bursting into flame and then twisted chunks of metal spinning off into the darkness.

“Your squads are on the hunt for the perfect ship,” Finn continued, pulling a chair up next to Poe’s bed. “I’ve heard they’ve turned down three perfectly operative ones so far.”

Poe tried to smile. He did. “Where’s Snap?”

“Out hunting for the X-wing, last I heard. Why?”

“I haven’t gotten… I need to know who died.”

Finn’s lips thinned, but he nodded. “I’ll send word that you want to talk to him if he ever puts his feet back on the ground.”

Poe wanted to reach out, but something held him back. Something cold that still lurked in the darkness of his mind. Something that curled around his heart and lungs and made Poe want to curl into a ball in ways he hadn’t since childhood.

“Poe? Poe!”

He jumped. “What?”

Finn was staring at him with a frown. He’d reached out to the commlink that connected each room to the doctors. “Are you okay? I lost you for a second there.”

“No, I’m fine. Sorry. I just… was thinking.”

Finn clearly didn’t believe that but he let it go. “Leia’s been sitting with you a lot. She’s off planet on some Resistance business right now, but she wanted me to tell you that if you needed some help dealing with the droid, she’d talk with you.”

“I’m fine.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “You’re not. Jakku might have been my first battle, but I’ve served on ships with interrogation droids. Most people break after a couple of days. You held out almost two weeks. You don’t come back from that ‘fine.’ And I’ve heard about Grendal—“

“How do you know that name?”

“You said it in your sleep. A lot, actually.” That was probably where Finn had found out what Grendal wanted. Finn finally met Poe’s eyes. His hand fiddled with the jacket cuff. “You’re lucky to be alive. He’s known for losing his patience and killing his subjects,“ Poe flinched at the word, but Finn had looked back down at the blankets, “after a couple of days. When I saw you were on the _Suppression_ , I thought we’d be bringing your body back.”

“I thought I was going to die there.”

Poe didn’t know why he’d said that. He could have—should have—brushed Finn’s concern aside with a smart-ass remark.

Finn took Poe’s hand without seeming to realize he’d done it. “But you’re here now. And you’re safe.”

Poe managed a smile.

 

Finn had his own duties at the Resistance base, apparently, and those duties kept him away more and more frequently as the days passed. Poe had been cleared to walk after the second day of full consciousness, but Dr. Kalonia wasn’t comfortable leaving him without monitoring and nearby aid. He regained his strength more quickly than he would have thought after the weakness of those first few days, but sometimes waves of pain and dizziness still overwhelmed him. More than once the medical droids had found him on his knees.

He didn’t tell Finn about that. Or Rey or Skywalker, although if any of the three understood First Order questioning, it would have been Rey. He didn’t even entrust that secret to BB-8. But he did tell General Organa and she’d smiled at him and brushed his hair off his forehead.

“That goes away eventually.”

Poe didn’t ask when ‘eventually’ was. He didn’t want to hear the answer.

There were a lot of things didn’t want. But mostly he did want sleep. He spent his nights pacing the perimeter of his room with the lights blazing. He wasn’t afraid of the dark the way a child was. The thought of falling asleep and opening his eyes to darkness _alone cold agony_ was what frightened him.

There had been a time in his life where Poe Dameron would have proudly proclaimed he wasn’t afraid of anything—death included. And he still wasn’t afraid of death. He’d faced death more times than he could count, and he knew his chances of dying of old age weren’t great.

But he was afraid of the ice that waited in the recesses of his mind.

And there were the nightmares.

He woke up in _Suppression_ to the interrogation droid hovering just in front of him.

But those weren’t the worst.

He had broken. He gave them the coordinates to the planet, the Resistance base, even Finn’s bunk, just to get the pain to stop. And it never stopped. It never stopped and he heard Finn screaming.

 

_The Stormtroopers hauled Poe to his feet, then let go. His knees crumpled and he landed on all fours. Most of his left arm and hand were numb now, and couldn’t support him. He caught himself hard on his right elbow. Everything hurt so much that Poe hardly even felt this new pain. Or maybe he did feel it, but it had been so long he could hardly remember anything_ but _pain._

_“Get up.”_

_“I can’t.”_

_A foot caught him in the ribs and Poe fell the rest of the way to the ground. The side of his head ached and he felt blood dripping from his filthy hair. Poe tucked his left arm as close to his body as he could and used his right arm to lift him to his knees. He couldn’t go any further. He wanted to. He wanted the pain to stop. He wanted to stand because_ they _wanted him to stand. Anything to make the pain stop._

_The Stormtrooper that had spoken seized Poe’s left arm and yanked him up. Poe felt that pain, molten bars radiating from his shoulder. His world went black for a few seconds—not long enough. Never long enough. Not anymore._

_When he found some sort of limited consciousness again, he was supported between the two Stormtroopers, his bare feet scraping along on the floor and searing pain from his shoulder. They were taking him to a section of the Star Destroyer he’d never been in before, at least not when he was conscious. Most of his transport happened after the interrogation droid finished with him and they finally let him lose consciousness._

_The Stormtroopers stopped outside a door and one of them commed for permission to enter. Poe couldn’t hear any response, but the door slid open and the Stormtroopers hauled him through. They were on a balcony overlooking some kind of arena. A full three dozen Stormtroopers stood in ranks facing the tiny gathering of people in the center._

_The Stormtroopers flung him forward, nearly pitching him over the edge._

_“Poe!”_

_Finn. That had been Finn’s voice._

_Poe looked up in time to see one of the Stormtroopers bring a riot baton down across Finn’s ribs._

_“No!” Poe looked around for help, for Grandel, for anyone but the two emotionless masks staring down at him. “No, you said you wouldn’t hurt him. You said you wouldn’t…”_

_There were other people down there. A grey-haired man on his knees, Rey next to him, their hands bound behind their backs. They had strange, furry lizards curled around their shoulders. Ysalamiri. Poe had thought they were myths. General Organa stood flanked by Snap and Jessika. She looked as steady as she had the day she’d come to him… months ago? years ago?… when he’d sat by Finn’s bedside._

_“You said only him! You said you only wanted him. You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”_

_His voice had lost its strength._

_The door opened behind him and then footsteps. Familiar footsteps. “Poe, stand up and come here.”_

_“I_ can’t _.”_

_That wasn’t his voice. That couldn’t have been his voice, cracked and pleading, a broken voice, desperate to please, but unable to._

_“FN-3181, get him to his feet. Lean him against the rail if he can’t stand on his own.”_

_Not the Stormtrooper who had grabbed his left arm. Gentler. Just a bit, but Poe had learned to find any kindness in this empty place._

_He pushed himself up far enough to let 3181 get a grip on his right arm. The Stormtrooper helped him to his feet and then to the rail near Grandel. Poe wrapped his right arm around the support, leaning his entire body against it. His legs shook, but Grandel had told him to stand. He would stand until his legs gave out. He would be rewarded. The pain would stop for a little while._

_Everyone was looking up at him, Finn from his knees beside the man. The older man met Poe’s eyes and Poe let out a broken moan. Skywalker. They’d found Skywalker. Poe couldn’t look at the rest of them. He couldn’t see the betrayal in Jessika’s face. Or in Snap’s. He’d never promised to keep them safe. Nobody could promise them that. But he never should have led to their deaths._

_“Take the ysalamiri. We don’t want anything to happen to them.”_

_The two Stormtroopers nearest Skywalker and Rey lifted the lizards from their shoulders and for a brief moment Poe thought the Jedi Master would do something, but he didn’t move. Apparently the animals didn’t need physical contact to keep Jedi from fighting back._

_A quiet whistling filled the arena. Poe looked around but nobody else seemed to hear the noise._

_“Aim.”_

_“No! Please. Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll fly for you. I’ll tell you whatever you want. Please, don’t.”_

_Grandel looked at him, eyebrows raised. “You’ll never fly again. Not with that arm. And you’ve already told us everything we need.”_

_More whistling. More insistent._

_“Fire at will.”_

 

A shrill whistle jolted Poe awake. He let out a few shaky breaths, then swung his legs over the edge of the bed toward BB-8. It had been his whistle. He’d been trying to wake him.

Poe collapsed in front of his droid, reaching out to touch the familiar, cool metal. BB-8 blipped a few times, rolling a little closer and whistling sadly. Poe could have stayed like that, supported more by his droid than his own strength, with BB-8 humming reassurances in his ear. But the sound of approaching footsteps drove him to his feet.

He stood too fast. A wave of dizziness darkened Poe’s eyes and his heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out any other noise, even the worried noise BB-8 had begun to make when he wavered. A hand caught his right elbow while he was disoriented, guiding him back to the edge of his bed. When Poe blinked away the darkness, he saw Skywalker sitting in a chair, resting his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his interlaced fingers.

“Have you told the doctors?” Skywalker asked.

“About what?”

Skywalker just looked at him. He hadn’t been this serene last time Poe had seen him. It was a little unsettling.

“No. I’ll be fine.”

“Eventually,” Skywalker agreed. “Men like you usually end up fine. I see a lot of Han in you, and one way or another, he was always fine. He left his wife, and my sister, for years, but he was fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Poe said suddenly, and Skywalker finally looked surprised at that.

“Why?”

“I… I should have done…” He trailed off. He’d had his own job above Starkiller Base. There was nothing he could have done. There was no point pretending otherwise. A starpilot’s job was to fight and die in space; what happened on planets wasn’t their domain. “What are you doing here?”

“I sensed your nightmare through the Force.”

Poe’s stomach twisted. He ran a hand through his hair and found it slicked with sweat.

“I remember you as a child running around Yavin 4. You had your mother’s curls. Still do. I think she wished you’d taken more of your father’s looks, but she always said you were a troublemaker and a born starpilot.”

“I taught myself to fly.”

Skywalker smiled. It looked strange on his face, like a man who hadn’t found reason to smile in years. “I was the same way. My uncle had his hands full with me up to the day Stormtroopers killed him.” At the look on Poe’s face, he added, “It’s been many, many years and I’ve forgiven the Stormtroopers. I’ve forgiven myself.

“You still have work to do, Poe Dameron. I don’t know what it is, but I knew it when I saw you on Yavin 4. You’ll be important in whatever is coming. As important as my apprentice or the former Stormtrooper. Without all three of you, I don’t think we will restore balance to the galaxy.”

Skywalker stood slowly, gesturing for Poe to stay sitting. “Try to sleep tonight.”

 

Poe didn’t sleep that night, or during the next day. He was almost sick with exhaustion by the time Dr. Kalonia released him from the hospital wing. There was nothing more she could do for him and they both knew it. She knew there were things Poe wasn’t telling her, but she was wise enough to know that there wasn’t much she could have done for him.

BB-8 accompanied Poe on his trek to his own room. Squadron leaders were granted their own rooms near the pilot bunks. It wasn’t much larger than what his bunk would have offered, but there was a door. And D’Qar had space some of their other bases didn’t have. It was a rare luxury that Poe usually resented, but today he was glad.

The hospital was near the main entrance, both for quick evacuation and quick admission. The pilots were all housed together in a wing further away with their own exit directly onto the landing field. It would have been quicker for him to walk outside and back in that door, but Poe would have had to walk past the X-wings and see where _Black One_ should have been sitting between Snap and Jessika’s ships.

BB-8 rolled ahead of him, beeping something about getting his room ready for him—although what he could have meant by that, Poe had no idea. He rubbed his face and focused on the steady interior lights of the hallway. It was familiar. It was safe. He’d walked this hallway hundreds of times. He’d walked it and jogged it and run beside his pilots when they got the call they were needed at their fighters. There was no darkness waiting around corners to steal his breath and strength and haul him away.

“Hey, Poe!”

Poe jumped at the sudden, echoing voice. He turned toward it and immediately felt guilty when he saw Finn heading toward him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Finn said, jogging up to his side. “I stopped by the hospital to see you, but you were already gone.”

“Dr. Kalonia finally got sick of me taking up a bed.”

Finn draped an arm over Poe’s shoulder. “Are you coming to the celebration tonight? A lot of your pilots are hoping to see you there. Most of them haven’t seen you since you went off to intercept the TIE fighters.”

“I hadn’t been planning on it.”

He hadn’t even heard of it. Maybe one of the aides had mentioned it. He really didn’t pay much attention.

“They’re lighting huge bonfires out in the main yard. They’ve given everyone but essential personnel the night off, and they’re giving everyone else short shifts so they can go out. Leia thinks everyone’s been so worked up after what happened with Starkiller that we all need a night.”

They turned the corner to Poe’s room and Finn let his arm drop from Poe’s shoulders.

“Think about it, okay? You need to get outside, and Luke is even letting Rey have the night off.”

Poe shrugged. He wouldn’t be sleeping whether he was alone in his room or outside. And they would probably be far enough away from the landing field that he could pretend _Black One_ was still sitting where she belonged. He’d gotten good at pretending things hadn’t changed.

“Yeah, I’ll see you there.”

The smile that lit up Finn’s face was worth anything Poe ended up dealing with that night.

“It starts at twenty-hundred. I’ve got a few things to finish before I can go.”

Finn caught Poe in a tight hug and then headed back up the hallway before Poe could even return the hug. He stared after Finn for a second, then shook his head, turning back toward his room. He could hear BB-8 chattering away inside, a warning that someone else was in his room. As his droid didn’t sound distressed, Poe figured that had been what he meant by getting Poe’s room ready.

He let the door slide open and stepped inside.

Snap stood up as soon as the door opened. Poe took a second to look him over. He looked pale and exhausted in the way only days in an X-wing could make someone look. Even with a droid keeping watch, it was hard to get any sleep in a cockpit that size, especially while out on patrol.

“Are you okay?” Poe asked.

Snap barely held off a yawn. “I’m headed back to my bunk to crash, but I wanted to check in. Finn said you wanted to talk to me.”

Poe felt sick. He had wanted to talk to Snap, but he didn’t want this information. He didn’t want _more_ reasons not to sleep, but he had to know. It was his job to know.

“Yeah, I did. I need the casualty list.”

“Are you sure? It can wait. General Organa took care of the notifications while you were out. There’s nothing left for you to do.”

“Snap.”

Snap shrugged like he hadn’t expected anything different. Then he squared his shoulders and Poe could pretend this was any debriefing, that the exhaustion eating at his chest was from days in his X-wing. It was a good pretense. He could work with that.

“Red Four, Rabbin Kree; Red Six, Fasik Fey’lya; and Blue Eight, Mylee Tiis.”

“Only three?”

“Three other injuries. We lost seven X-wings total, including _Black One_ , and two others are grounded for repairs. Jessika’s X-wing took some damage when she turned back to try to find you.”

“You didn’t all go to hyperspace?”

“I gave the order. Then Jessika and I ran one last scan for you. We couldn’t find you, and one of the TIE fighters got a little too close to Jessika. We jumped for home.”

Poe didn’t know whether to be proud or angry.

“We’ve found replacements for all of the ones we’ve lost, except for _Black One_ , and there’s a new generation of X-wings General Organa wants us to take a look at. Red Eight’s X-wing is still grounded, but we got Blue Five’s back in the air. Jessika sent me to look at one she thinks you’ll like. I think she’s right. She’s not _Black One_ , but her pilot had been killed a year or so back, and her husband has been trying to find someone to take it. He sounds pretty particular about who gets it, but as soon as Jessika mentioned you, he was more than eager to show it to us.

“The pilot made a bunch of modifications before she died, even some you’d talked about making to _Black One_ yourself. And I know it’s not your starfighter, and it never will be, but you need a new X-wing if you’re going to get in the air again.” Snap frowned. “You _are_ getting in the air with us again, aren’t you?

“Of course I am.”

That had never been a question. Asking Poe to never pilot again, moving from planet to planet in cargo ships or massive transports, was like asking him to stop breathing. He lived and he flew. It was all he knew. And without an X-wing, his use to the Resistance was limited.

Snap let out a sigh of relief. “Not that I don’t trust flying under Jessika, but I think everyone will be relieved to know that. People were getting worried that maybe your arm had been hurt worse than we thought it was. Not that you couldn’t fly like that, but—“

“I couldn’t fly an X-wing in battle, short of a cybernetic replacement. No, my arm is fine. It took longer than I thought it would, but I should be able to fly again soon.”

“Good.” Snap pressed his hand to his mouth to smother a yawn. “I need to get some sleep. Are you coming out tonight? It would do everybody a lot of good to see you.”

Poe nodded. “You’ve only got a couple hours. Are you sure you’ll wake up?”

Snap grinned. “You think being tired will keep me from a party? I’ve heard that some of the analytics girls will be stopping by.”

“Get out of here,” Poe said with a laugh. Snap waved on his way out the door, bending down to pat BB-8 on the head as he passed. BB-8 trilled.

Poe lasted until the door closed before he collapsed back on his bed. The casualties weren’t as bad as he’d feared. From what the First Order had said, Poe had expected it to be a lot worse. Clan Alya wouldn’t have been happy to learn about Fasik’s death, but the Bothans seemed to be rarely pleased about anything these days. They threatened to pull all their starpilots back every time one of them died, but unless there was enough clan pressure, there wasn’t much they could do to follow through with their threats.

BB-8 blipped a question and Poe looked up.

“I’me fine, Beebee.”

A sharp, dissenting warble and Poe sighed.

“Okay, maybe not yet, but I just need some sleep. Then I’ll be okay.”

BB-8 let out a string of sounds that took Poe a moment to translate.

“I’ll figure out a way to sleep. I know General Organa won’t let me fly like this. I’ll figure something out.”

He didn’t know _what_ he would figure out, but he would find something. There had to be something he could do, something to shut down the part of his brain that spun and tumbled like asteroids whenever he tried to sleep.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poe still doesn't understand coping mechanisms and BB-8 gets involved.
> 
> Sorry this took so long. I was having a lot of trouble with this chapter, and it's way longer than any of the others.
> 
> Anybody who is interested in what chapter three almost was can go [here](http://fangirlingtendencies.tumblr.com/post/136348652633/losing-sleep-chapter-three-abandoned). First draft warnings apply, crappy writing, weird sentences, things that reappear in different places in different context, etc.

Poe wanted to lay in his bed until exhaustion finally knocked him out. But he’d promised Finn and Snap he would be at the celebration, and maybe with enough alcohol he could sleep. They had to be serving something strong enough to let him sleep.

He’d decided to stay in and then to go out a full six or seven times before he finally swore, grabbing his shoes and stuffing his feet into them. BB-8 blipped at him questioningly, but Poe gave him a reassuring smile that apparently wasn’t as reassuring as he’d thought. The droid beeped at him again, but didn’t press the issue.

Poe could hear the strains of music as he approached the main door. He stepped out into the large clearing to find most of it had been turned into a dance floor. The _Millennium Falcon_ marked the near edge and the length of the base and massive wall of shipping containers held at the ready for a quick evacuation made up the back border. It was already full dark this far north on the planet, and a dozen bonfires marked the rest of the perimeter and chased away the oncoming darkness. A few smaller fires burned near tables under the watchful sensors of droids.

A number of musicians were gathered in the center of the clearing; a few of his pilots were among them. Pairs or small groups of dancers stood nearby, waiting for the musicians to begin their next song. As Poe watched, the musicians struck up an old Alderaanian dance, and one of his younger pilots swept Rey into the forming lines. She was laughing, trying to copy his steps. Poe almost expected to see General Organa join the dancers, but she was watching from a nearby table with her brother at her side. Skywalker had his arm around her.

Red and Blue Squadrons had gathered on the far side of the dance floor at a long table that abutted one of the bars. Trust them to find the liquor. Most of the cadets and pilots too young or inexperienced to be assigned to a squad stood nearby. His pilots looked uneasy, a few holding drinks but not drinking them. Even the ones dancing or playing instruments kept shooting glances toward the table.

It took Poe nearly five minutes to work his way to the table to find out what was wrong. Every few steps someone stopped him to welcome him back. The greetings were brief and nobody asked any questions he didn’t want to answer. Smiles and a few hugs and he was allowed to continue on his way. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have broke and run back to his room if it had been much more than that.

Snap was perched on top of the table on the end nearest the bar, his feet resting on the bench. He’d been talking to the bartender, a Chiss female Poe definitely didn’t recognize. There weren’t many of them on this side of the Ascendancy, and even fewer among the Resistance. When Poe approached, Snap accepted his drink from her and slid over to make room for Poe to sit next to him.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

“I got stopped a time or six on my way here. What’re you drinking?”

Snap shrugged, holding out his cup for Poe to examine. The liquid was the same blue as the bartender’s skin. Even from this distance, Poe could smell the sharp scent of alcohol. “Something Corellian. Want one?”

“Two.”

Snap snorted, but held up his drink and then two fingers. The bartender nodded, moving to make the drink and pouring liquid from at least four different bottles. Poe had no idea how the colors she was mixing made blue, but she was so graceful while she did it, Poe hardly cared. She carried on a conversation with the male Chiss beside her, grabbing bottles and ice without even looking.

Snap waved his hand in front of Poe’s face. “Hey. Want it?”

Poe blinked, then accepted the cups from Snap’s hands. He drained the first one without tasting it. At Snap’s clearly surprised expression, Poe said, “I needed a drink.”

“Yeah, I can see that. I suppose if anyone here needs a drink, it’d be you.” Snap took a sip of his own drink, then leaned back on one hand, balancing his cup on his knee. “Everyone’s glad to see you out here.”

Poe noticed then that his pilots had begun to disperse, tension fading from smiles. A few moved to get drinks and most of the rest headed out to the dance floor. One of the older pilots, maybe Snap’s age, caught Dr. Kalonia’s hand as he passed by. She laughed, handing her drink off to one of her friends, then let him lead her out to the dance floor.

“They were worried you wouldn’t come back to us,” Jessika said. She’d come up behind them, sat on the table, pulled her knees in, and then spun until she faced the same direction as them. It brought a faint smile to Poe’s face. With the first drink warming his empty stomach, things had begun to feel a little simpler.

“What else would I do?”

Jessika shrugged, downing the rest of her drink and holding the cup out in front of Poe for Snap to set on the bar. The other Blue Squadron fighter sighed, but took her cup. “I don’t know. I don’t think even Master Skywalker could find you a better place than in an X-wing. He was quite the pilot himself, you know. You might want to trade tips. Oh, your new one got here a few hours ago. You can take a look at it tomorrow if you want. I think you’ll like her.”

And at that, she slid off the table and waved goodbye. She paused near a Twi’lek female with green skin whose name Poe didn’t know, but he’d seen her a few times before. She’d disappeared for a while, so Poe thought she may have just gotten back from deep cover. She looked like she might have. She had that same furtive step Poe had seen on so many other people. The Twi’lek looked at Jessika in surprise, then allowed her to lead her onto the dance floor.

Poe shook his head. They accused him of being a flirt.

“Where’s your tail?” Snap asked in the silence between songs.

“My tail?”

“The Stormtrooper.”

Poe frowned his direction. Snap was still watching the dancers, his cup raised to his lips for another drink. “I don’t know where Finn is. He said he’d be here. What’s with the voice?”

“What voice?”

Poe resisted the urge to kick Snap in the ankle. Barely. “Don’t play stupid with me. I know you better than anyone.” His anger surprised him a little. What did it matter how Snap referred to Finn? He had been a Stormtrooper, although Poe would hardly have called him his tail.

“I get that you like him, for whatever reason. I get that he’s a friend of yours. Some of the others don’t. I mean, he’s got plenty of marks in his favor. He spent most of his time at your bedside when you were out, and he pushed hardest for General Organa to green-light a rescue for you once we figured out you were still alive.” Snap finally looked at Poe, and there was a simmering anger in his eyes. “He’s a Stormtrooper. How many of us have his kind killed? He’s a great asset to the Resistance, but is there enough good left the galaxy for him to do to make up for what he is?”

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s done enough good. He never volunteered for this. They took him from his family as a child. How is he responsible for thirty or forty years of what other men have done?”

“I’m only telling you what the others are saying. And it’s not just the pilots.”

Corellian liquors were among the best at what they did, and the warmth from his first drink had suffused his limbs and begun wrapping his mind in a gentle haze. Poe took a drink from his second cup. He realized now that he let the alcohol hit his tongue that he may have underestimated the alcohol-to-mix ratio of whatever this was. There may have been only an alcohol-to-alcohol ratio. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bartender lean on her elbows on the bar, laughing at something her companion said.

“How many other people think this?”

“Enough.” Snap let out a harsh breath and took another drink, then rubbed his forehead. “They’ll come around. We all will, I suppose, if you insist on keeping him around. But today’s not about him. The girls have been waiting for you to show up. And there’s a handful of guys over there who haven’t stopped watching you since you got out here. You can have your pick of dance partners tonight. Well, you can always have your pick of partners any night, but there are more options than normal.”

Poe finished the rest of his drink and held his glass up. The bartender raised her eyebrows at him, but pushed herself upright and pulled three glasses from beneath the counter and set about making new drinks. A comfortable lethargy had settled into Poe’s bones, and he was more than willing to sit and watch her.

“I’m not dancing tonight.”

Snap passed two drinks to Poe. Poe set one down beside him and sipped at the other.

“When do you not want to dance? You could have a different partner for every song tonight.”

Poe downed half his drink. This, whatever it was, might be strong enough to wipe the memories from his mind for just one night. He could drown the nightmares in haze. That was all he needed. One night. He could find a better solution when his mind was clear.

This, drinking himself into a stupor, wasn’t a viable long-term plan, especially if he ever wanted to fly again. But it would work for one night.

“Think maybe you should slow down?” Snap asked, and Poe realized he’d set down his third cup—empty—and picked up his fourth.

“Not tonight.” Even through the growing fog in his mind, Poe could see the concern on Snap’s face. Guilt cooled the warmth in his stomach, but Poe ignored it. There would be time to convince Snap and Jessika and the rest of his pilots that he was fine once he slept. “Everybody else is as drunk as I plan to be.”

“Yeah, but not after twenty minutes.”

Moments later, before Poe could think of a good response, a blue hand settled on his knee. The hand, he discovered once he’d followed the arm up to the face, belonged to the Chiss bartender. She held up her own drink and nodded for him to finish his.

“Want to dance?”

Poe finished his drink as she did, but was about to decline when he felt a hand in the middle of his back. Snap shoved Poe off the table. He managed to catch his balance before he stumbled into her.

“I guess I do,” Poe said, shooting Snap a look. Snap had already turned to the other bartender to order his next drink. Poe threw his cup back at Snap. It hit him in the chest.

The Chiss smiled at him and took his hand to lead him to the dance floor. The ground was definitely a little more tilted than it had been when he’d left the base, but he was fairly certain he managed to follow her without stumbling. Probably. She paused at the edge of the dance floor nearest the shipping containers and turned to face him, settling her hand in the center of his chest.

She was just shorter than him, but she had the powerful, muscular build all Chiss had. A quiet part of Poe’s mind reminded him that he had passed “buzzed” two drinks ago and was well into “drunk.” Possibly even “drunk enough you’re going to hurt a lot tomorrow morning.” Poe shut that part of his mind up and leaned in to kiss her. She grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt and began pulling him out of the firelight behind the wall of the shipping containers. He let her walk him back against one of the containers, then put his arm around her waist to keep her close.

“This isn’t dancing,” he observed.

“It’s not,” she agreed. “Would you rather we dance?”

He scoffed and leaned down to kiss her again. She clearly knew what she was doing, sliding her arms around his neck. The hem of her shirt rose up far enough to reveal a strip of her skin, and Poe put his hand there, curling his fingers around her side. She was warm and soft and Poe suddenly ached for her.

He spun them, pinning her back against the wall. She laughed. “We could still dance if you wanted.”

“I like this dance,” he said. Poe kissed down the long line of her throat, tasting the salt of sweat on her skin, feeling the vibration of her quiet moan beneath his lips. He cupped one of her breasts through her shirt. She pressed closer, and heat and need jolted through Poe’s body. He let out a sharp breath, then caught her by the back of her thighs and lifted her, steading her against the wall; she wrapped her legs around his waist, balancing herself with her hands on his shoulders.

He took advantage of their new height difference to kiss the hollow of her throat, then down into the valley between her breasts. She ran her hands through his hair and then down the back of his neck to grip his shoulders again.

A sound drew his attention toward the nearest end of the row of shipping containers, but he couldn’t see anything there. Reluctantly, Poe let her down to her feet. “Let’s take this somewhere more private.”

 

_“No. No, don’t. Please. Don’t.”_

_“The pain will stop when you tell us where to find FN-2187. We know he’s in the Ileenium system.”_

_A jolt from the interrogation droid and Poe’s head slammed back against the headrest. The wet warmth of blood dripped down the back of his neck. Every muscle in his body had gone rigid with pain. He screamed. Maybe he was still screaming. Had he stopped?_

_“Please.”_

_“You don’t want us to find him before you tell us, Resistance. Where is he?”_

_Poe rode out the wave of pain, biting his lips, tasting blood, but another wave followed before the first had even crested. He need the pain to stop. It had to stop. But the droid had injected him with something and he couldn’t escape into unconsciousness._

_“I am losing my patience. Tell me where he is.”_

_“Please. No more.”_

_More pain. Agony that made his limbs shake and white light flash behind his eyelids._

_A high-pitched whistle sounded in his ear._

 

Poe sat up, flinging his blankets aside. He sat back in the corner, gasping in breaths so deep his chest hurt. A memory. It was only a memory and Skywalker had destroyed that interrogation droid. “Beebee-ate, knock it off.” The whistling stopped and the dull ache in his head eased a little. It was only a memory. He was in his bed in the Resistance base on D’Qar. He was safe. “What time is it?”

BB-8 whistled his response, much more quietly.

“0900? Really?”

A pleased beep.

His eyes were adjusting to the light, and Poe rubbed at the ache of a hangover beginning behind his forehead. He wasn’t sure what time he’d fallen asleep last night, but whenever it was, he’d gotten more sleep in one night than in the last few days combined. He was still exhausted, his limbs still felt heavy, his left shoulder still ached even though Dr. Kalonia had assured him there was nothing wrong with it anymore.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

Poe would never understand how an entirely mechanical droid could give him the kind of looks BB-8 managed to give him, but the droid clearly thought he had suffered some sort of neuro damage if he thought BB-8 was going to wake him up the first time he managed to get any sleep.

“Let me get cleaned up and dressed and we’ll go take a look at the new X-wing. What do you think?”

BB-8 squealed with excitement, and Poe threw his hands up to cover his ears as pain spiked behind his eyes. His droid gave a quiet, apologetic beep and rolled back into a corner.

Poe rose and patted BB-8 on the head, then moved to pull some clothes out of his footlocker. He could hear the door to his room opening and closing as he stepped into the small refresher room and into the sanisteam. By the time he stepped out, Poe felt almost human again.

BB-8 was waiting in his bedroom, a compartment open and presented toward him. Poe knelt to retrieve whatever it was his droid wanted him to see, then laughed. BB-8 had somehow managed to get one of the hangover meds for him. Poe popped it in his mouth and swallowed it dry.

“Thanks, buddy.”

His hangover was entirely gone by the time he stepped into the mid-morning sunlight, but his morning’s optimism had also faded. There were still too many X-wings missing. They’d lost so many over Starkiller and the others after his capture.

BB-8 blipped curiously when he realized Poe had stopped. “I’m okay, Beebee. Let’s go.”

It was obvious which X-wing Jessika had brought in. Sometime during the night or early morning it had been painted black and stood alone and proud on a slight rise away from the rest of the fighters. He walked toward it, biting down the grief that rose in his throat. _Black One_ had been an X-wing, same as any other. A collection of parts and electronics, but he and the fighter had survived so much, only to be torn apart after everything should have changed. They should have been winning. The First Order should have been running.

The paint was still tacky, and would be for hours yet to survive atmospheric re-entry, but Poe reached up and let his hand hover just above the metal. He ached to take BB-8 and fly. If he could get his feet off the ground for a few hours, then… what? Nothing would have changed. He would still have to come back and the nightmares would still rise up from the darkness and rip any chance at sleep from him.

BB-8 blipped a warning, and Poe let his hand drop, turning to see who was approaching. The little droid had somehow realized Poe’s startle reflex whenever someone was behind him and had begun offering quiet, unobtrusive alerts.

Rey had begun wearing robes much like Skywalker’s. She’d even adopted some of his traits, including walking in a measured way that Poe could only describe as “serene.” But not today. She was wearing those same robes, but nothing in her demeanor was serene. She looked furious.

“Poe.”

“Morning, Rey.”

“Don’t.” Poe opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a finger and he fell silent. Last time he’d pissed off a Force-user, it hadn’t gone so well. And he’d heard the story of the last time Finn pissed off Rey, and that hadn’t gone so well either. Poe decided not to try his luck. “I don’t know what you did, but Finn is really upset right now.”

“What did _I_ do?”

Rey held up her finger again. “I just said I don’t know. But whatever it is, Dameron, you go apologize to him right now. You figure out what you did, and you apologize. Am I clear?”

Poe couldn’t remember the last time he’d been startled by that severe of a dressing down. He usually knew what he’d done to earn the ire of his commanders. But he found himself nodding. The only reason he didn’t suspect her of using some Force trick on her was because he still deeply, deeply didn’t want to go face Finn. Whatever he’d done must have been bad for her to come running to him. “Okay.”

Rey smiled at him. Apparently now that she’d delivered her message and he was going to go find Finn, she had forgiven him. “Good. I just saw him head into the mess.”

Poe cast one last look back at the X-wing. This was better, probably. Standing and staring at the starfighter he hadn’t been cleared to fly wasn’t going to do anything for his need to sleep. “C’mon, Beebee. Let’s go. Do you want to come, Rey?”

“I’ve eaten. And I’ve got some more training with Master Skywalker today. Later?”

He nodded, then headed in the direction of the doors, BB-8 rolling faithfully at his heels.

Poe stopped just inside and looked down at his droid. “You can come with me if you want, but I won’t have anything for you to do today.” BB-8 beeped. “Yeah, go ahead. You deserve the rest.”

The droid rolled away toward Poe’s room and Poe continued toward the mess. There weren’t may people there at this hour, so long after breakfast and still too early for lunch. There was still a quiet buzz of conversation, for which Poe was grateful. He didn’t want to have this conversation where everyone could overhear. Rumors spread quickly enough in this place as it was.

Poe hardly had any stomach for any food, but he found an apple he thought he could stomach and headed toward Finn. He was sitting alone, although most everyone in the mess at this hour was, and frowning down at his plate. It didn’t look like he’d touched his food. Poe swung his leg over the seat and sat on the other side of the table. Finn didn’t even look up.

“Rey told me you’re pretty pissed at me.”

Finn’s head snapped up so quickly Poe felt an empathetic twinge in his neck. “I didn’t tell her to tell you.”

Poe forgot sometimes how young Finn was, despite everything he’d seen. He reached out to touch Finn’s hand. “I didn’t think you did.”

But Finn pulled back, sliding both hands under the table. Poe frowned. Despite not being what Poe would call overly affectionate—a byproduct of Stormtrooper raising, he assumed—Finn had never pulled away from him. Granted, one or the other of them had always been in medical beds, but he hadn’t though their friendship was limited to near-death situations only.

“Whatever it was, I’m sorry,” Poe offered, suddenly feeling uncertain. Maybe Finn thought he’d owed Poe for something, despite having saved Poe’s life twice, while Poe’s contribution on that front remained at zero.

Finn met Poe’s eyes and there was some deep sadness in them that Poe couldn’t identify.

“Finn, honestly, what did I do?”

Finn shook his head and smiled, but it never reached his eyes. “Nothing. It’s fine.” He shoved his tray away from him and stood up. “I’ve got a lot of work to do today. And I heard your new X-wing was in. You’re probably busy.”

And then he was gone before Poe could even call after him. Poe looked down at his apple, noticing a huge bruise discoloring nearly half the flesh. That was just his luck, he supposed. Something that looked good at first, but actually was completely ruined.

“You done?” a mechanical voice asked.

Poe jumped. The droid just looked at him impassively until he nodded and set the apple on Finn’s abandoned plate. The droid gathered the plate and rolled toward the kitchen.

He groaned and pushed himself to his feet. There was nothing else he could do today. General Organa had made it clear he was grounded for at least a week, so it wasn’t as though he could try his X-wing. And as his only other options were to go back out to the field or volunteer for some other duty they probably wouldn’t let him do anyway, Poe headed back to his room. Maybe he could get a few more hours of sleep.

 

_“You’re weak.”_

_Poe didn’t have the strength to argue._

_The voice coiled around in his mind, twisting his thoughts until there was room for nothing else. This wasn’t the Force; it wasn’t brute strength and rage tearing at him until he gave up the very thing he should have died to protect. This was a man, standing at his shoulder, gripping his shattered shoulder, whispering in his ear._

_“Eleven days and this is what remains of the Resistance’s most feared pilot. You should have heard the comms chatter when your X-wing appeared. ‘It’s him. It’s Black Leader.’ My Stormtroopers feared to fight you, and now…”_

_“Please, stop.”_

_“I almost want to let you go. I want to see what happens the next time my Stormtroopers fought you, if you can even fly a X-wing again. ‘It’s Black Leader. Ignore him. He’s no danger to us.’”_

_“I—“_

_The hold on his shoulder tightened; Poe could feel the shattered bones shifting beneath Grandel’s fingers. “I don’t want to hear a word from you, unless it begins the sentence, ‘The Stormtrooper is…’”_

_He was sobbing then, like a child. Torn between his desire to_ obey _and_ make the pain stop _and his loyalty to the Resistance. To Finn. He couldn’t even plead for mercy. Anything but what Grandel wanted to hear would make it worse. But it was so much pain his vision was blurring. The interrogation droid hadn’t been involved this time. At least Poe didn’t think so. He couldn’t remember. He wouldn’t have remembered his own name if Grandel hadn’t deigned to use it on occasion._

_“There’s going to be nothing left of you when I finish. A husk. The empty shell of a man who used to strike fear into the hears of Stormtroopers.”_

_The hand released his shoulder, but before Poe could begin to feel grateful, the interrogation droid hummed to life._

 

“No!”

There were hands on his shoulders, shaking him. Poe struck at them. He heard a quiet grunt of pain and then the hands were gone. Poe’s eyes began to focus.

“It’s me. Poe, it’s just me.”

Poe sat up and blinked bleary eyes at the shadow in front of him. “Snap?”

The shape nodded, resolving into his friend’s worried face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m—“

“If you say ‘fine’ I am going to have to punch you.” When Poe didn’t say anything, Snap sighed and sat at the edge of his bed. “Is this why you’ve looked like death the last few days?”

Everyone had always told Poe he was a shit liar, so he nodded. It was why his interrogation resistance techniques had always been outright refusal to speak and sarcasm, rather than lies. He was too tired to think of a good lie now anyway. “It’s just some nightmares. They’ll go away.”

“I heard you screaming down the hallway. I expected to see you disemboweled by a D’Qarian slug or something.”

“There are D’Qarian slugs that disembowel people?”

Snap fixed him with a look, and Poe got the feeling that punching him hadn’t been struck entirely off Snap’s to-do list for the day. “Poe, you can’t live like this.”

“I just need some time. I’ll be flying again in a few days and then I’ll be fine.”

“You need to be fine before you fly.” Snap rubbed his hands together, then pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. “I’ve followed you on suicide runs, and you always manage to get more of us out than should have survived. I trust you. I’ll always fly at your side. But you can’t keep us alive if you don’t sleep.”

Poe knew that. He knew his use to the Resistance—to his pilots—hinged on his reflexes, his ability to think. If he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t think. He would put everyone in danger. He would get everyone killed. He groaned and rubbed at his face as though that would erase the memories and nightmares and get him in an X-wing again.

“When was the last time you slept through the night?” Snap’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Poe wouldn’t have expected anger or aggression from Snap, but he hadn’t expected something so close to pity, either.

“Last night.”

“And before that?”

“Before _Suppression_.”

“Have you told the doctors?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Snap sighed and stood up. “Get dressed. I’ll meet you out in the field. You need to get outside for a while, and it’ll do you good to get your hands dirty again.”

He left before Poe could think of a good argument, leaving him with no option but to get up and go to the landing field. He knew Snap well enough to know that if he wasn’t out there in a reasonable amount of time, Snap would come back and drag him outside in whatever he was wearing. So Poe got up and got dressed.

When he reached the landing field, a cadet pointed him toward a row of damaged X-wings. Some had clear carbon scoring from firefights, others didn’t seem to have anything wrong with them he could see from here. Snap was already working on the first one in the row.

“Climb into the cockpit and take a look at the sensors,” Snap said once Poe got close enough to hear him.

Poe climbed the ladder and peered into the cockpit. “What am I looking for?”

“Sensors. Lights. A whistle that plays a jaunty tune.”

Poe swung his legs over the X-wing and slid into the pilot’s seat. He hit a couple switches. “Nothing. I don’t even have a warning light, and definitely no jaunty tunes.”

“Fat lot of good those lights are anyway,” Snap grumbled, his voice muffled by the fighter. “By the time those things come on, I already know I have a problem.”

“Did you check the D-6 and D-7 power couplings? Some of the early generation T-70s had the same problems as the late T-65s.” He heard a quiet rattle beneath him, then the engine hummed quietly for a brief second, but no lights came on.

“Well, we got something,” Snap said. He stepped into Poe’s line of vision and smeared a streak of grease across his forehead as he tried to brush his hair out of his face.

Poe stood up and hopped down the ladder. “Tell me what we’re looking at.”

It was a relief to do this. He didn’t have to think. He only had to find problems and fix them. He was surrounded by familiar sounds, Snap’s voice, X-wings taking off and landing, cadets taking bets on who among them would get to fly first. It was as comfortable as his home on Yavin 4. More comfortable, even. This was his life in a way Yavin hadn’t been since his mother’s death, the Resistance and flight and engines.

Working with his hands settled him. The raw nerve endings in his chest were buried beneath the slip of grease and the scent of hot metal. Cadets and pilots walked behind him and his hands didn’t shake. Mechanical hums didn’t tear his breath from his throat.

They’d worked their way through four X-wings before a cadet brought them both dinner, and Poe realized they’d been working under floodlights for hours. Snap settled on the ground in front of the X-wing and stretched his legs out in front of him with a sigh. He dug into the food, some mixture of noodles, sauce, and meat that Poe was certain met all of their dietary requirements. And even probably tasted good. Or it would have if everything Poe tried to eat didn’t taste like stale bread and water.

“Poe—“

“Did you see Finn last night?” Poe hadn’t meant to ask that question, but the look of concern was back on Snap’s face again, and Poe didn’t want to have that conversation again.

“He showed up looking for you a little bit after you left with the bartender,” Snap said after a brief pause. “I didn’t see him after that.”

“Rey tracked me down this morning. Said he was upset with me for something.”

Snap shrugged. “Didn’t say anything to me. Just that he was looking for you.”

Poe took a bite of his food, and it was just as bad as he expected. He put his plate down and stood. Snap watched him with a confused frown and looked ready to stand up.

“I’m going to try get some sleep.”

Nobody bothered him on his walk back to his room. BB-8 gave a pleased blip to see him, and then a confused warble when Poe ignored him to pull on his sleeping clothes. He tossed and turned in bed for hours, drifting off to sleep only to hear a sound from somewhere on the base that sounded like an interrogation droid, or the voice of someone in the hall that turned into Grandel’s voice. A blanket across his throat turned into a hand on his neck.

He was cold. No matter how high he turned the heat up in the room or how many blankets he managed to pile on top of himself.

It was shortly after midnight according to the glowing chrono on his wall when he finally gave up, kicking his blankets off and grabbing clothes. He’d planned to spend then next few hours wandering the halls, hopefully until he was so exhausted he could sleep sitting on the ground, but he stepped out of his room with a brief order for BB-8 stay where he was, and nearly bumped into someone.

The man caught Poe’s elbow to steady him, and as Poe’s got a good look at him, he got an idea. He’d had a reputation when he’d been younger, one that was well known throughout the Resistance, even if he’d settled down considerably in the last few years. But he still sometimes got long, lingering looks that would have been an invitation a few years back. This man was giving Poe that exact look, and the hand that had been on Poe’s elbow had slipped down to his forearm.

“Are you okay?” the man asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. I should be paying attention to where I’m going.” Poe swept his eyes up and down the man’s frame. He was taller than Poe, with tousled blond hair, and dark brown eyes. “Can’t sleep?”

“I figured walking would give me something to do until I got tired. My name’s Adl.”

“Poe.”

Adl grinned, and it was a good look on him. “I know who you are. Is there anyone on the base who doesn’t?”

Poe laughed and looked deliberately toward his door. “There have to be some people who don’t know me.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting to know you.”

And Poe was relieved that he wasn’t the only person who decided to walk the halls at midnight looking for a quick fuck. He backed against his door and keyed it open. BB-8 whistled indignantly, then rolled out of the room, nearly tripping Adl as he followed Poe inside.

“I don’t think your droid likes me,” Adl observed, pulling Poe’s shirt over his head, then yanking his own off.

“He doesn’t like anybody,” Poe said, forgetting for a moment that that was actually a lie. They scrabbled at the remainder of each other’s clothes, kicking off shoes, and stepping out of pants, until Adl grabbed Poe’s hip to pull him closer and Poe groaned at the contact.

“Bed. Shit, just get on the bed.”

Adl laughed, pulling Poe down with him. Poe caught himself on one hand, running his hand down Ald’s chest. He was paler than Poe, and well-muscled, but something about him was off. Poe was still desperately hard, pressing down against him, but something wasn’t quite right.

Poe ignored it, focusing on the pleasure sparking low in his stomach.

He heard a warbling wail, a familiar voice, and the sound of a droid overriding the lock. Poe swore, flinging a blanket over the two of them before the door opened. BB-8 rolled into the room, managing to look insufferably pleased with himself, but that wasn’t what made Poe’s heart stop.

Finn had clearly followed BB-8, and Poe didn’t doubt his droid had done that on purpose, the manipulative little thing. Poe watched the expression of concern on Finn’s face morph into horror. He turned and fled back down the hallway. Poe swore again, grabbing for his clothes. Adl groaned in annoyance, but he reached for his own clothes.

Poe had stumbled into his pants and was still pulling his shirt over his head when he ran out the door after Finn, Adl already forgotten behind him.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to get up!
> 
> Poe gets a few talking-tos and gets his next orders

“Finn, wait!”

Poe had only taken time to grab a shirt and pants when Finn took off, and he was beginning to regret it. Shifting from bare foot to bare foot on the freezing floor, he looked both ways down the empty hallway. Poe swore and picked the direction he thought Finn was most likely to have taken. He knew Finn’s room was somewhere near the main door, but he’d never been there. This late at night, Finn was most likely to have gone to his room. At least Poe hoped so.

Poe jogged down the hallway, listening for footsteps other than his own. There was nothing. Just his own breath and his own heartbeat in his ears. Finally, he rounded a corner in time to see Finn turn down another hallway. He was walking steadily, determinedly not looking back, although though he had to have heard Poe’s approach. Poe caught Finn’s arm halfway down the next hallway.

“Finn, _wait_. Let me—“

Finn pulled away and kept walking, but Poe lunged for him again, catching his hand. Finn jerked his hand free, stopping so quickly that Poe nearly stumbled into him. He stayed there then, with his back to Poe and his head down.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“

“It’s your room,” Finn said. His voice was tight. “You can do whatever you want in it.”

Poe didn’t know why he was so desperate to explain himself, but hearing Finn’s voice like that hurt as much as anything the First Order had ever done to him. “I can’t sleep, Finn. I can’t sleep, and I can’t think.”

“They’ve got sedatives for that.”

Poe reached for him, but the moment his fingers touched Finn’s skin, he pulled away like Poe was something toxic. Maybe he was. “I can’t take them. Pilots can’t be on sedatives. We can’t be on anything that affects our minds. I have to fly, Finn. It’s the only thing I can do.”

Finn walked away. Poe took a step his direction, then let him go, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. He turned back toward his room, pathetically grateful the hallways were still empty. He didn’t want to face anyone like this, barefoot and exhausted and he was pretty sure his shirt was inside out.

Aside from BB-8 waiting at the head of his bed, the room was empty. The droid blipped uncertainly, and Poe shook his head. “Don’t say a word.”

BB-8 rolled out of Poe’s sight and stayed silent. Poe cast a longing look at his bed, but he dug out a pair of shoes from under it and stuffed his feet in them. He tugged off his shirt and fought with it for a few seconds to get it turned the right way out and pulled it back over his head. Then he stepped back out into the hallway.

Poe leaned back against the wall and let his head _thud_ back against it hard enough that it hurt. Shit. He’d wanted sleep. That was all he’d wanted. Sleep and a clear mind. And now Finn would never look at him again, and something in his chest cracked. He hadn’t known Finn long, but the thought of never speaking to him again was a sharper grief than it should have been.

He swore quietly under his breath and pushed off the wall. He needed to go somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t this base. But it wasn’t as if General Organa would let him just take an X-wing and do a flyby. Rationally, realistically, he was in no condition to take one of the X-wings, even if she had let him. It had been his job as Commander to assess his pilots’ ability to fly. There was more to piloting an X-wing than the physical act.

He found his way to the low tables arrayed around the front of the landing field. There weren’t any flights scheduled this early in the morning, or this late at night, whichever it was, and none of the scouts were due back for another half day. The tables were usually for pilots on rotation, but everything had been relatively quiet since Starkiller, so they’d taken everybody off active rotation.

The floodlights weren’t on, but the moons were nearly full, bathing the field in lavender light that kept the tendrils of ice from creeping around his heart. And it wasn’t like he was going to sleep anyway; it hardly mattered where he was.

Poe squeezed his eyes shut so tightly he saw starbursts. There were voices in the back of his head, echoes he couldn’t forget. They whispered his name, phrases of conversations he never wanted to remember. An interrogation droid humming.

_You’re aboard the Star Destroyer_ Suppression _._

_But don’t expect some heroic rescue. They think you’re dead._

_Resistance scum isn’t my style._

_You’ve stolen something from us, and we want it back._

Warmth spread over Poe’s shoulders and he jumped, startled out of the memory.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Rey said. “I called your name, but you didn’t hear me.”

Poe touched the fabric Rey had spread over his shoulders. It was one of the brown Resistance regulation blankets.

“You looked cold,” she said and dropped her bag on the table in front of them. It clattered. She hitched the blanket further up Poe’s shoulders. “Hold that there.”

He had been cold, although he hadn’t realized it. Poe pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, hunching over to warm up and to prepare himself for the dressing down Rey was undoubtedly going to give him.

“Rey, please, not today. I know he’s pissed.”

Rey shrugged, swinging her leg over the bench and sitting down. “I’m not here for Finn. I haven’t even seen him since dinner, but Master Skywalker thought you might need some company.”

Poe didn’t ask how Skywalker would know that he needed company. A nightmare he understood, sort of, in the limited way he understood the Force, but how he would pick Poe out of a base full of people who’d lost family and friends only weeks ago, he didn’t know. Rey pulled out a box and set it in front of them. She opened the lid, revealing a bright array of fruits and nuts. He grimaced.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“I’m fine, Rey.”

She looked him over, not with the serenity of Skywalker, but with the eye of a woman who had grown up observant, because to be otherwise was to die alone in the desert. Finally she nodded toward his hands. “Your hands are shaking.”

He drew his hands into fists, but that didn’t still their tremor. Rey put her hand on top of his.

“I’m not going to ask you anything you don’t want to answer, but you know I’ll listen if you wanted to talk. I am going to tell you that if you don’t eat something, I will sit on you and feed you.”

Poe snorted, but fished a handful of berries out of the box before he had to find out if she was serious. She probably was. The berries were a toxic purple, but he assumed Rey wouldn’t have brought something that would kill him. Probably. Unless she had talked to Finn. He took a hesitant bite. It should have tasted sweet and he probably should have wanted to know what it was. But food still was only stale bread in his mouth. Rey patted his shoulder as though praising him, and began eating some seeds he also didn’t recognize.

They ate in silence, and Poe managed a few berries, an apple, and a handful of the seeds Rey held out for him to sample. She didn’t seem satisfied with how much he’d eaten, but she let it be.

“I’m not going to ask,” Rey said after she’d packed everything back into her bag, “but I’m really worried about you. We all are, even Master Skywalker. Please talk to somebody. Leia or Finn or one of your pilots. Master Skywalker would listen. I would.”

Poe tried to smile. Rey didn’t look fooled. He tugged the blanket off his shoulders to hand back, but she spread it over him again. “You looked cold.”

Rey shouldered her bag and turned back toward the base. Poe let his head fall into his hands. He needed to gather his strength for the coming day, but he was exhausted. He was so tired he was sick. His body ached; his eyes were gritty. He needed sleep. But less than a minute later he heard footsteps behind him and he forced himself to raise his head to see what Rey had forgotten. The table seemed empty.

“Poe?”

Poe cringed and fought the irrational urge to pull his blanket over his head. “Yeah, Finn?”

He felt Finn sit beside him, but he didn’t dare lift his head to look. “Did you get any sleep?” Poe shook his head. “Yeah, me either. When will your pilots get out here?”

Confused at the question, and that Finn hadn’t yet told Poe to go find a high cliff and jump off it, Poe shrugged. “Not for a couple hours yet. I doubt we’ll see them before sunrise. We sleep when we can.”

Finn made a quiet, humming sound. Then, “Poe, would you look at me?”

Poe took a deep breath and looked toward him. Finn reached out to touch his hand, which he’d let fall back to the table when he’d heard Finn’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said, eyes focused on Finn’s hand on top of his. “I don’t know what Beebee was thinking, but I’m selling him for scraps.”

“Don’t be mad at him,” Finn said. His voice was gentle and Poe wanted to curl up in his voice and let it keep all the other voices away. “I think he was just worried about you. We all are. But I was thinking about what you said. Why can’t you sleep?”

The warmth of Finn’s hand soaked into Poe’s skin, and some of the roiling tension in his stomach faded. “Nightmares.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

“What?” And that only came out a little bit strangled. A series of images popped into his head and he worked very hard to banish them before he said anything he regretted.

“I mean… not that.” Finn swallowed, shifting on the bench. “I’m not saying that, just… I know what it’s like. To have nightmares and not be able to sleep.”

“I’ll be fine, Finn.”

“See, that’s what everyone says you’ve been saying. Luke and Rey and even Snap, when he’s willing to speak to me.” Finn took a quick breath, looking down at their hands. “And, I mean, you could have come to me for… for that. If you needed to sleep. Or anything.”

Poe twisted his hand so his palm was pressed against Finn’s, and Finn closed his fingers around his. The warmth in his hand—the only warmth he’d felt as he drifted in and out of consciousness those first few days after his rescue—soothed some of the agony in his chest.

“I’m not going to trade a night’s sleep for our friendship. Sleep isn’t worth that much. Nothing is worth that much.”

Finn was silent for a few seconds, then he let go of Poe’s hand and stood up. “You’re shivering. Come on. We’re going somewhere warm.”

Poe had planned to sit outside until the first of his pilots appeared for the morning, then go back to his room to change and face his pilots for another day. He hadn’t planned on following Finn back through the main doors with a blanket draped over his shoulders. But he didn’t think he’d earned back the right to argue, so he did just that.

Finn keyed open a door not far from the main entrance and gestured for Poe to follow him in.

Poe’s own room didn’t exactly look homey and lived-in—he’d always spent more time in his X-wing than in his bedroom—but Finn’s room was austere. He had an identical footlocker at the foot of his bed, a chrono on the wall, and a chair at the desk, but the bed was so pristinely made that it hardly looked as though anyone had ever slept in it. Nothing sat outside the footlocker, not even a pair of shoes. Now that he thought about it, Poe didn’t even know if Finn had more than one pair of shoes.

Finn turned to face Poe, his hands fidgeting with the hems of his shirt sleeves. He looked up long enough to meet Poe’s eyes, then back down at his hands.

“I know what they say. About me, I mean. I’m a Stormtrooper, and not much else.”

“Finn—“

“Let me finish.” Finn looked as though he was facing a firing squad, back straight and shoulders squared. “We didn’t do this. Stormtroopers aren’t encouraged to form attachments, even among our own unit. I was always bad at that, though. Captain Phasma always said that it was my one major weakness. If I could stop _caring_ , I would have been command.” He shook his head, tugging at his sleeves again. Poe reached out to stop him, putting his hand over Finn’s and stilling his movements. “I don’t know the words for what I’m trying to say.”

Poe let the blanket drop from his shoulders and took a slow step toward Finn. Finn watched him with a sort of desperation in his dark eyes.

“Finn…” Poe thought he knew what Finn was trying to say. He hoped he knew what Finn was trying to say. If he was wrong, he was going to be a long, long time getting over this. It had been many years and a number of partners since Poe had _wanted_ like this. It was a want he would have survived without any hint of interest from Finn, but if he got his hopes up and was wrong, he was lost.

He cupped Finn’s face in his hands, running his thumb across Finn’s cheekbones. Finn’s eyes closed and he took a shaky breath. Poe leaned in to kiss him, a gentle press of their lips together and a brush of his tongue on the seam of Finn’s lips. Then he kissed him one more time for good measure and moved back, keeping one hand on Finn’s cheek and letting the other fall to his shoulder.

“Is that what you were trying to say?”

Finn nodded, opening his eyes and licking his lips. Poe wanted to kiss him again.

“I know I’m just a Stormtrooper. Just a number. And I don’t know how to be a person. I don’t know how to do this.” He gestured between them. “But I’m trying to figure it out. I want to figure it out.” After a heartbreaking moment where Poe tried to decide what to say, Finn stepped back. “This isn’t why I brought you here. I brought you here to help you sleep.”

“Finn, I—“

Finn shook his head, turning toward his bed. “No, not like that. Take your shoes off—or whatever you want—and lay down.”

Poe didn’t think he’d been given much of a choice, so he kicked off his shoes and, after a brief hesitation, slipped his shirt off. If he really was going to sleep he might as well be comfortable. And even if he wasn’t going to sleep, he still might as well be comfortable. Finn turned back to face Poe, his mouth open to say something, but whatever he’d been planning to say caught in his throat and he uttered a soft, “Oh.”

Poe flinched when he realized what Finn had seen, but Finn had already stepped up to him and pressed his palm to a constellation of tiny, dotted scars along Poe’s ribs.

“What’s this?”

“The interrogation droid,” Poe said, swallowing down the panic that was already rising in his throat. “Before it starts, it injects you with something so you can’t pass out. And sometimes it just…” He shrugged. The doctors had promised him they were small enough to fade with time.

There were more across his chest and stomach and the fronts of his shoulders. He still felt the pinpricks of pain sometimes, when he wasn’t strong enough to pretend they didn’t exist.

Something twisted on Finn’s face, but he let his hand drop and gestured for Poe to lay down. He did, mostly because he was too tired to argue, even though he doubted he would get any more sleep here than he would have in his own bed. Finn kicked off his own shoes and pulled the chair next to the head of the bed. He dimmed the lights to almost black and sat.

Poe looked at him through the shadows, trying to pick out identifying features, but the room was dark enough that anything beyond Finn’s outline was almost indiscernible. Poe could barely pick his own hand out of the darkness. He could watch the rise and fall of Finn’s shoulders as he breathed, the way his posture slumped as he relaxed, but he couldn’t identify his individual fingers or the color of his lips.

Through some miracle, Poe’s eyelids grew heavy and he felt himself slowly falling asleep.

_This is what remains of the Resistance’s most feared pilot._

_My Stormtroopers feared to fight you, and now…_

Fingers combed through his hair. “It’s okay, Poe. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

_Ignore him. He’s no danger to us_.

The bed dipped—it was hardly large enough for two grown men—and arms slipped around him. He was pulled against a broad, warm, strong chest.

_There’s going to be nothing left of you when I finish._

Fingers started carding through his hair again, and Finn was whispering to him.

Poe pressed further into the warmth. He knew those voices were only in his dreams, but he couldn’t drag his eyes open far enough to fight them off. He only wanted sleep, and Finn’s gentle touch had begun chasing the voices away. For the first time in weeks, Poe was warm and at ease and he began slipping into a deep sleep.

He stirred when a quiet humming pierced his consciousness. A voice whispered in his ear, “It’s just the repair droids. They’re housed down the hall. Go back to sleep.”

And he finally woke when the warmth that had been plastered against his side left him. Finn’s voice was back in his ear. “There’s someone at the door. I’ll be right back.”

Poe rolled away from the light, pulling the blankets over his head. Finn laughed quietly and a few footsteps later, the door hissed open. Someone spoke quietly, and he could hear Finn’s responses.

“Yeah, he’s in here.” A pause. “He’s sleeping.” Another pause. “I’ll let him know.”

Poe began the slow process of extricating himself from sleep when all he wanted to do was pull Finn back into bed and go back to sleep. But Finn tugged the blanket down and pressed his hand to Poe’s cheek.

“You’ve got to wake up now. General Organa is looking for you.”

That was enough to jerk him out of the haze of sleep. He’d been in the Resistance too long to not wake up at that summons. He sat up slowly, rubbing at an ache in his neck. “How long did I sleep?”

“Almost nine hours,” Finn said, holding his hand out for Poe to take. “Let’s go.”

 

The ops room was almost empty when Poe and Finn entered. General Organa stood conferring with her brother and Admiral Ackbar near the front of the room, but she cut off when Poe stepped inside. She looked Finn over, but didn’t request that he leave.

“Circumstances have changed,” General Organa said without preamble. “We will need you in the air as soon as possible. We’re sending you on a trial flight with your new X-wing; your droid has already been sent to the field. Captain Wexley will accompany you.”

The part of Poe that should have been thrilled he got an opportunity to fly again was suspiciously quiet. Something was happening that he didn’t like. “With all due respect, General, what circumstances?”

“We will address that once I’ve received word of your flight.”

Poe had been dismissed many times by many different people, but something in General Organa’s dismissal lit warning lights in his head. He bit back his natural inclination to demand an answer. “Yes, General.”

“Finn, since you’re already here, I need to speak with you as well. Go ahead, Commander.”

Poe shot Finn an uneasy look, but turned to follow his orders. He jogged toward his room and changed into his pilot fatigues and then headed out to the landing field. His X-wing still stood alone on the slight rise, and Poe could see BB-8 already settled inside. The droid gave a worried beep when he saw Poe.

Poe climbed the ladder and slid into his seat. “We’re going to be having a talk later, Beebee, but we’re okay right now.”

The droid blipped happily.

Poe keyed for his cockpit to close and began pre-flight checks. BB-8 seemed as eager to be in the air as Poe was, sounding the all-clear after only a few seconds.

“Ready to get in the air again?” Snap’s voice asked over the coms.

“More than you know.”

“All right. I’ll meet you in the air.”

“General Organa said circumstances had changed,” Poe said as he rose above the treetops. Flight was second nature to him, and he found himself double-checking his instruments without much thought. They all read well in the green. As everything sank to toy-sized and then pinpricks beneath him, Poe’s hands steadied and the tension in his stomach and chest faded. This was what he was meant to do. Here, in an X-wing, there was no one in control but him. “What did she mean?”

“I don’t know,” Snap said. Poe could see him just over his left shoulder. “She put the pilots on three-hour rotations, and we’re supposed to stay near the planet for this run.” Just then, Snap swooped ahead of him. “Let’s put her through her paces. Follow me.”

Poe spent the next hour diving and spinning, twisting through the asteroid belt right behind Snap. It was exhilarating, and out here the darkness and cold of space didn’t seep through his pores and into his skin the way it had did he was on D’Qar. Space was where he belonged.

Poe dove ahead of Snap, cutting him off around one of the asteroids and taking the lead. This new X-wing wasn’t _Black One_ , but it handled well. Almost better than _Black One_ had, if he was being honest. And now, with Snap diving beneath him to try come out ahead at the next turn, Poe felt like he could breathe again.

But much too soon, BB-8 scrolled a message across his display and Poe eased up on the throttle.

“What’s wrong?” Snap asked immediately, turning back toward him.

“General Organa wants us back on planet.”

A heavy sigh, then, “All right. Let’s head back.”

Poe led the way back toward the planet. A part of him, a very small part, had been afraid Grandel had been right. That he would never fly again. That he would get into an X-wing and his hands would shake and his vision would blur and he would be useless to the Resistance.

But he hadn’t. Grandel had taken his sleep, the taste of food, the steadiness of his hands, but he hadn’t taken this from him.

The technicians swarmed the X-wings when they landed, sliding the ladders into place and taking Poe’s helmet from him. One of the senior technicians passed on the message from General Organa that they were to report straight to ops. Snap was to go in first and give his report, and Poe would follow. Snap took off toward ops, and Poe followed more slowly to give him time.

He reached ops just as the entire group of active pilots, Red and Blue Squadrons and others, began filing in. Poe slid in near the back of the group and began working his way toward Snap at the front. He looked around for Finn as he walked, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

Snap had been looking at something on the holodisplay, but he looked up when Poe reached his side. He nodded and Poe let out a quiet sigh of relief that was swallowed up by the bustle of the room. He was fine. He would fly.

The whole of the Resistance leadership stood gathered together at the front of the room. General Organa shook her head at something Major Ematt said, then glanced around the room. Her eyes settled on Poe for a moment longer than he’d expected, just long enough to make him worry, then she turned back to Major Ematt. She turned to the gathered pilots once the room began to quiet and pressed a button on the holodisplay. A Star Destroyer rose in front of her.

Poe had enough time to get the sinking feeling he knew this ship before General Organa began speaking.

“The Star Destroyer _Suppression_ is coming for us. Commander Dameron.”

“Yes, General.” Poe thought he should have felt something at the _Suppression_ but somehow everything inside him was numb.

“We have an old T-65 painted like _Black One_ ready and waiting for you. You will take it and R2D2 up to _Suppression_ and allow yourself to be captured. _Suppressions_ ’s standing orders are to find Finn, but for right now, he’s fixated on you. While on the Star Destroyer, you will find out how much Grandel knows and how much the First Order knows about our location.”

Poe’s throat worked, fighting to get words out.

“General.” And that was Snap, stepping forward, putting himself between Poe and General Organa. “General, they’ll kill him.”

“It’s a possibility, but unlikely. From what our informants have said, Grandel wants him alive.”

Poe reached out to touch Snap’s shoulder, silently asking him to stand down. Snap retreated reluctantly, coming to a stop at Poe’s side. And Poe was grateful for his friend’s stolid support. He was hyperaware of everybody else in the room, the too-quiet silence as though everyone was holding their breath, but Snap had stepped forward to protest. “General, if they keep me locked up like they did before, I won’t be able to move around the ship.”

“We won’t need you to. Your mission is Grandel. Get him talking. Find out if he’s told the First Order where we are. We don’t have a new base to retreat to yet.” Poe could feel himself nodding along without seeming to have any conscious control over the movement. “We will get you out, Poe.”

“Yes, General.” He couldn’t understand how his voice was so steady. “Unless you have anything further on my part of the mission, I’ll step out.”

“Commander?” Major Ematt asked.

Poe could understand his confusion. He’d always wanted to know every step of every mission, whether he was involved in them or not. But not this time.

“I’m a security risk, Major. If I’m compromised, if they break me—“ He tried not to hear the murmur that moved around the rest of the room, “I can’t tell them what I don’t know.”

General Organa didn’t quite look at him with pity, she’d seen too much and had fought too many battles for that, but it was a near thing. Near enough that Poe swallowed down his rising panic. “You will take off with Red and Blue Squadrons in an hour. You’re dismissed.”

Poe kept his back straight as he walked from the room. He kept his back straight and his eyes forward and his hands steady as he passed his friends and subordinates and superiors. He was strong enough for this. He was strong enough to walk blindly down the hallway until his knees would no longer hold him and he stumbled back against the wall. He slid to the ground, trying to gasp in full breaths as his chest constricted. He needed a moment, just a moment, and then he would gather himself and stand up and go sit with his pilots in the field and laugh and smile and he would be fine.

Quick footsteps approached down the hallway, and before Poe could begin to rise to his feet, a hand closed on his elbow and helped him up. He thought it was Finn at first, but the arm that slid around his waist was clothed in unfamiliar, tan fabric. A nearby door hissed open and he was helped onto a chair.

“Do you know where you are, Poe?”

The voice was warm and familiar and Poe almost knew who he was talking to. He couldn’t lift his eyes from the floor yet, but the familiarity let him breathe a little easier.

“D’Qar.”

A hand rested on his forehead and a little more of that panic cracked and fell away. Poe could see Skywalker in front of him now, standing between him and the empty black of space and the dark metal of First Order ships. Finally lifting his eyes, Poe could see the same concern on Skywalker’s face that had been there the night he found Poe on the floor of his hospital room, still wracked with the horror of a nightmare.

“Skywalker—“

“You called me Luke when you were a child. You can call me that now.” He sat on the bed across from Poe. “You understand my sister wouldn’t have asked you to do this if there was anyone else.”

“I understand. And I can do what the Resistance needs me to do. I just didn’t expect it.”

He could do it. He wasn’t sure he would survive it, but he would complete his mission before he died. Somehow he felt like Luke understood what Poe was saying, that he’d faced his own darkness and come through ahead. Or at least he had come through.

“There was a code, a mantra, among the Jedi of old. I never found it particularly comforting myself, but I know others did. The first line was, ‘There is no emotion, there is peace.’”

Poe didn’t know what that meant when fear crossed from an emotion to a living, breathing creature that sunk its talons into his lungs, but he nodded. It was something, at least. Something he could hold onto when the _Suppression_ appeared in his viewscreen.

“What is the rest of it?”

“‘There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.’”

Poe sat for a few seconds, digesting the words. “I like it.”

Luke smiled. It seemed to come more easily than it had when he stood in Poe’s hospital room. “I thought you might.” He looked at the chrono on his wall. “It’s nearly time.”

Poe pushed himself to his feet. He felt weak, but there was a lingering calm at the base of his skull that he thought was something Luke had done, but he could hold onto that for now, long enough to get him to his X-wing. He would do what had to be done.

Luke followed him to the door, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. “We won’t abandon you to the First Order. We will come for you, and we will bring you home.”

Poe nodded and stepped into the hallway. The base was too quiet for midday, and he had the feeling that everyone not rushing to get ready for their part of the General’s plan was staying out of the way. And he was glad. He didn’t think he could withstand any pitying looks. It was enough to know he was probably going to die, and that he wasn’t going to find Finn one last time before he left, without having to smile at everyone who knew just as well as he did that he was dying.

His pilots, and Poe hoped that whatever came after death was kind to them, formed a protective barrier around him when he stepped onto the field. None of them followed him around, either physically or with their eyes, but they were there. As far as he could tell, they were getting ready for any other mission. Some of them were laughing and joking and placing bets on who would tally the most kills today. Some of them were having serious conversations near their X-wings. They all knew they were facing death, and they would deal with it as they would. It was familiar and comfortable.

BB-8 rolled out from under a table with a distressed wail. Poe knelt in front of him, patting his head gently. “Not this time, buddy. No, it’s not your fault. It’s just something I need to do, and I can’t bring you with me. Stay with Rey, okay? She’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

BB-8 made a sound Poe had never heard before, but he understood it well enough. It was the closest a droid could come to grief.

“It’s gonna be okay, Beebee. I’ll be home in a couple days and then you can yell at me for worrying you. Go, find Rey.”

The droid blipped his steadfast refusal to leave the field until Poe had taken off, then rolled back under the table where he wouldn’t be in the way. Poe climbed to his feet and dusted off his knees.

The T-65 stood right next to his new T-70. The paint job was rough, but for an X-wing that was almost certain to be destroyed, Poe didn’t suppose it mattered. R2D2 had just rolled into position to be lifted into the X-wing. The droid offered a greeting his direction as he disappeared into the X-wing.

Poe climbed the ladder to the cockpit. He’d flown T-65s before, and he was nearly as familiar with them as with the T-70s. He would have no problem flying this one. He would have to remember that they weren’t quite as responsive as the T-70s. One more thing to focus on that wasn’t the _Suppression_.

“Are you ready to do this, Artoo?” Poe asked.

The droid blipped an affirmation, and commented he had his own mission to carry out, after which he would assist in ensuring Poe was freed. He would have nothing to worry about. Poe grinned in the droid’s direction.

Footsteps sounded on the metal ladder to his side, and Poe frowned, turning to see what whoever it was needed. He was fairly sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Poe!”

“Finn?”

Finn was out of breath when he reached eye-level with Poe. “General Organa had me working on something, I think to keep me out of the briefing.” He reached out to touch Poe’s cheek. “She told me what they were going to do to you.”

“They’re not doing anything to me,” Poe said, letting his eyes close. “I could have refused.”

“No, you couldn’t have. I’m sure they gave you the option, or would have, but you could never have refused.”

A loud whistle sounded across the landing field. The three-minute warning. Poe caught Finn’s hand. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Damn right you will,” Finn said. He climbed another step and then he had a hand tangled in the back of Poe’s hair and was kissing him with more enthusiasm than skill, but Poe was so surprised he hardly remembered to kiss him back. Finn did take advantage of Poe’s surprised sound to slip his tongue past Poe’s lips. Poe caught a handful of Finn’s hair, just long enough now for him to manage it, tugging him in closer.

Now that Poe’s brain had caught up with what was happening, he leaned up into the kiss, breaking away long enough to suck at Finn’s lower lip, and then back again. Finally, reluctantly, he slowed the kiss, cupping Finn’s cheeks as he pulled away.

“Come home,” Finn whispered, his lips still close enough for Poe to feel them move when he spoke. “Please, Poe, come home to me.”

“I will. I’m coming home.”

Poe held onto that when R2D2 beeped that the Star Destroyer had taken control of the X-wing’s slave circuit.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super sorry about the wait for this, everyone! I started this in semester break, and I'm a grad student working two jobs. Terrible excuse, I know.
> 
> Follow me at [Fangirling Tendencies](http://www.fangirlingtendencies.tumblr.com/) to keep up on my writing progress. I try to post occasionally when I feel like people are getting paranoid I'm abandoning this.
> 
> Also, I edited this with a migraine (I'm full of excuses tonight) so it might not be quite up to par with my previous chapters. I'll try to take another look at it in the future.

“I knew the Resistance was stupid, but I didn’t realize they were this stupid.”

Poe’s hands tightened on the X-wing’s controls. He’d had to pretend to be afraid on missions before, but he didn’t need to pretend this time. He couldn’t even summon the courage to pretend not to be afraid. His every instinct was screaming for him to at least try activate the X-wing’s weapons, but the _Suppression_ had already slaved his circuits and they’d definitely locked him out of that. Plus, R2D2 had ejected just before the Star Destroyer had taken Poe on board, and he was a good pilot, good enough to fly an X-wing without a droid, but not good enough to escape a Star Destroyer without one.

“You might as well come out before I send the Stormtroopers in.”

He’d had nightmares about that voice every night. That voice had _been_ his nightmares.

Poe’s hands were shaking so badly he fumbled with the button to open the cockpit. He was better than this. Stronger than this. He’d had enough time to accept this fate.

He had a hold-out blaster hidden in a small pocket in his clothes beneath his flight suit. They would find it if they gave even a cursory search, but it was one last safety on his side.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

He pressed the button and the cockpit slid open. The air of a Star Destroyer smelled no different than any other filtered air on any other ship, but bile rose in his throat. His stomach twisted as he moved to swing his legs over the edge of the X-wing. A rickety ladder—not at all regulation, or even quite the right height—had been rolled up to the edge. He hadn’t seen it happen.

One foot in front of the other, step by step. _There is no emotion_. He was standing on the ground. _There is peace_. He dragged his eyes up.

Even flanked as he was on both sides by Stormtroopers, Grandel hardly looked intimidating. He wasn’t that much taller than Poe, now that he was standing unrestrained and on his own feet. A few inches at most. In a fair fight, one where Poe’s stomach was settled and his hands didn’t shake, Poe had no doubt he would have come out on top. As it was, with four Stormtroopers, with Poe’s legs barely strong enough to hold him upright, fighting wasn’t even an option.

“You look scared.”

“Can’t say I expected to be standing here again.”

Poe didn’t fight back when two of the Stormtroopers took his arms and the other two stripped the flight suit and shoes from him, then searched the clothes he had on underneath, snatching the blaster from his side. They tossed it away without a thought. Once they’d finished, one of them forced Poe to his knees in front of Grandel for his inspection.

“Your arm’s healed nicely.”

“We’ve got good medics.”

Grandel crouched to eye level and Poe managed not to flinch. The First Order officer looked him over with narrowed eyes. “Your rescue cost me a great deal of money. Do you have any idea how expensive those droids are? For every one your Resistance confiscates or destroys, there is one fewer in existence.” Grandel stood up and stepped back. “But now that we have destroyed the New Republic, we can begin manufacturing them again.”

Poe couldn’t tell if that meant he still had an interrogation droid. He didn’t dare hold onto the hope that he didn’t.

“I’m going to enjoy breaking you again. Take him.”

The Stormtroopers jerked Poe to his feet and shoved him forward.

They took him deep within the ship. Further than he could reasonably expect to escape from, nowhere near his X-wing. And he didn’t doubt Luke and General Organa intended to keep their word, but how would they track him if the ship went to hyperspace?

No, he couldn’t put his hope in their rescue. He hardly could put hope in his own escape.

His shoulders were burning by the time the Stormtroopers deposited him in the cell. They shoved him through the door, and Poe hit the ground hard. The door slid shut behind them.

This room was much smaller than the interrogation room, although it held a cot in one corner. Clearly they expected him to stay here much longer. But aside from the cot, the room was empty. No interrogation droid hovered in a corner.

Again, not a hope he dared hold onto.

Then the lights in the room went out and Poe was left alone in the darkness. He felt his way along the wall until he reached a corner opposite the door. Poe pulled his knees in and closed his eyes. As long as his eyes were closed, he could pretend he wasn’t back in this darkness alone. He could be anywhere. He could be laying in his bed with Finn.

Finn.

He wasn’t prepared for the grief that welled up in him. He knew when he’d signed on with the Resistance that he wasn’t likely to live a long life. That his mother had survived long enough to see him grow into a child was a minor miracle, especially after she and his father had sent him to live with his grandfather.

It had never bothered him. His death was likely to be swift and relatively painless. Even when there had been someone he hadn’t wanted to leave behind, Poe had never thought much about what his death would have meant. But he missed Finn desperately. He’d come so close to having something he’d wanted, and now he has lost it before he’d ever really gotten it.

The door whooshed open and light flooded the room. A hand grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. His vision was still blurry the first blow hit his stomach. He doubled over, reaching to comfort the pain, but someone grabbed his arms and forced him upright.

Grandel punched him again, driving the air from Poe’s lungs. While he was recovering, choking on air, trying to draw in a breath, Grandel took a fistful of Poe’s hair and jerked his head back.

“You’ve cost me a great deal of money and time, and you’ll cost me more before I’m through. I will have to break you by hand, but I will break you.”

Then the hand in his hair tightened again and slammed Poe’s head back against the wall.

 

Poe woke crumpled in a heap in the corner. It was dark again, so dark he couldn’t see his own hand as he raised it to touch the throbbing spot at the back of his skull. His fingers were tacky with blood when he pulled them back. He felt gingerly around the wound, but he didn’t think any bones had broken. Not that he would know what a broken skull felt like.

He rose shakily to his feet, balancing with a hand on the cool metal of the wall. There had been a cot. He remembered a cot. He moved slowly until his foot caught on the edge of the something that seemed raised from the ground. It wasn’t much more than a pallet with no pillow or blanket, but he’d slept on worse. Anything was better than the ground or that restraint chair.

Poe lowered himself down and let out a harsh breath. Even on his back, everything seemed to tilt and spin.

But he could work with this. This was the kind of pain he’d been prepared to face the first time he’d been captured. It was what he’d experienced on _Finalizer_ before Kylo Ren had stepped in to rip thoughts from his mind.

It was a better kind of pain than what the droid had inflicted, if one pain could be better than another. That pain had settled deep in his bones; it had been ripped directly from his nerves. This was a surface pain. It went no deeper than his muscles and stained his skin where, if he was rescued, he could watch them heal. There would be something physical he could watch disappear, a part of his past he could put behind him and refuse to see again.

He must have fallen asleep, because he woke to sudden brightness and hands on his arms. Stormtroopers dumped him to the ground with an added kick to his stomach. He bit back a cry of pain. He wouldn’t give them that satisfaction yet.

“Stand up.”

Some of that compulsion to _please_ and _obey_ and _stop the pain_ must have stuck with him, because he was on his feet before he had consciously registered the order. He wavered and nearly fell, but managed to hold out until the dizziness dissipated.

“Very good, Poe. We don’t have to make this difficult. You can save us both time. I will parade you in front of the Resistance, retrieve the property you’ve stolen, and then I can get back to the job I’ve been assigned.”

“Destroying the Resistance?”

Grandel waved his hand, dismissing the thought. “A perk. No, the First Order doesn’t care how I get the wayward Stormtrooper back, as long as I do. They need to know what went wrong with his conditioning and fix it. Fix him, if possible. We put a great deal of time and money into their training. And if we can’t fix him…”

Fix him. They would destroy Finn and there would be no putting him back together again. If they managed to recondition him… It was an impossibility that Finn had broken free the first time. There wouldn’t be a second. And if they couldn’t recondition him, they would kill him.

Poe hoped R2D2 was doing whatever he needed to do.

“Why not just destroy us? You could have the fleet here before we could jump to hyperspace.”

Grandel sucked on his teeth and looked Poe over. Finally he shrugged, gesturing the stormtroopers toward Poe. They caught his arms again, pinning them behind his back. Poe let out a little gasp of pain he couldn’t quite hold in.

“I will return to the Supreme Leader with the Stormtrooper, the Resistance’s most feared pilot rendered harmless, and a crippled Resistance. I don’t plan to share that triumph.”

Grandel’s punch would have crumpled him to his knees but for the hands on his arms. When the Stormtroopers finally did let him go, once Grandel had finished, Poe did drop to his knees. He pressed the heel of his hand to his lower lip to stem a dribble of blood.

“You know where we are. Why don’t you just end us all now?”

Grandel struck out at him halfheartedly. Poe ducked out of the way, tensing, expecting some retribution for his insolence. But Grandel was already gesturing for the Stormtroopers to head for the door.

“Your pilots have been making a nuisance of themselves every time I turn around. For now I focus on stopping your stinging gnats. Then I’ll move on to the Resistance.”

Poe watched him go, hunched over on his knees, something like hope and despair twisting in his empty stomach. The lights turned out as the door shut behind the stormtroopers, and Poe was alone again. He pressed the base of his thumb to his lip, hissing at the sting. Feeling for the edge of the cot, he heaved himself up onto it. His ribs ached and his head was still spinning.

He didn’t know how long he’d been here. A day, maybe, depending how long he’d been unconscious or sleeping. Long enough to get hungry, at any rate. He’d tried to eat some of a ration bar before they’d reached _Suppression_ , at R2D2’s insistence, but he’d barely gotten a few mouthfuls down.

Poe leaned back, groaning at the stretch of bruised muscles, until he found the wall. He maneuvered himself slowly, inch by painful inch, until he was leaning against it. He let his head drop forward to protect the tender spot at the back of his skull and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

How many of his pilots, his stinging gnats, were dead now? How many of them had been sacrificed to keep Grandel’s eyes fixed on Poe and not on whatever the Resistance was doing? A death for the Resistance was a good death. If they couldn’t die old in their beds, this was the next best thing. For most of them, it was the only death they could imagine.

Snap and Jessika and Rey. And Finn. Poe missed him desperately. He wanted to land back on D’Qar like none of this had happened.

He wanted, he wanted, he wanted. All the wanting in the universe wouldn’t get him out of here.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

He eased himself down onto the cot and slept.

 

He woke to bright light and a splash of icy water across his face.

“Get up, Resistance scum. I don’t have all day.”

The light was so bright he could barely see, but he recognized the voice.

“Never thought I’d see you again,” Poe said as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“Shut up.”

The woman shoved something dark at him and he caught it just before a sharp corner jabbed his chest. His vision had cleared enough to see her hold up a comlink.

“You know how this goes. Eat. All I have to do is call for the Stormtroopers and they’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born.”

Poe thought he’d probably already started down the path to wishing he hadn’t been born, but he didn’t argue. He fumbled with the box as he opened it, but managed to pry off the lid on his second try. A ration bar and bread. Some water.

If he survived, he was never eating bread again.

The woman stood well out of his reach, as though he was steady enough on his feet to have posed any sort of threat.

“What’s your name?” Poe asked between bites. At her look, he shrugged and gestured toward himself. “It’s looking less likely that I’m getting out of here alive. One less question to have when I die.”

She narrowed her eyes, then crossed her arms, keeping the comlink tight in one hand, and close enough to her mouth for the stormtroopers to hear her in case this was some kind of a trick. Poe wished it was some kind of a trick.

“Ami.”

“Where are you from, Ami?”

She didn’t answer.

Poe wanted to escape, yes, but at that moment, a larger part of him than he was willing to admit only wanted an interaction with another sentient being that didn’t end in pain.

He lapsed into silence, forcing down another bite of stale, dry bread. He was so tired, and it was too much work to keep his words from slurring. He finished the food and water, then held the box out to her.

Ami looked at him suspiciously, then took the box more gently than she had given it to him. She left, the lights turned out, and Poe was alone.

Shivering now, the cold water drying on his skin, Poe settled back down on his cot to sleep.

It was a restless sleep, one in which normally he would toss and turn, but his body ached too much for him to do more than make abortive movements in one direction or another. He heard footsteps and voices he thought he knew. More than once he started awake after a crash or a voice next to his ear to find that he was still alone. He curled into himself as much as he could, tucking his arms close to his body and his chin to his chest.

_There is no emotion._

The Stormtroopers found him huddled in a protective ball the next time they entered. They had hauled him to his feet and toward the door before he was even fully awake.

“Where are you taking me?”

Silence. Well, it wasn’t like he’d really expected anything else. He didn’t know if these were the same Stormtroopers he’d been dealing with the whole time—or if any of them were the same—but none of them had been particularly chatty.

He even stayed on his feet most of the way until they took a sudden left through a doorway. The sudden direction change wrenched his shoulder—apparently not as healed as he’d thought—and the pain buckled his knees.

The Stormtroopers dumped him at Grandel’s feet near a dark metal railing. For a single, terrifying moment, he was kneeling on an observation deck with Luke, Rey, Finn, Snap, Jessika, and General Organa standing beneath him, waiting for their executions. But he heard the bustle of a ship’s bridge around him, voices and footsteps going about their business.

The toe of a boot kicked Poe in the ribs, driving the breath from his lungs and sending a pulsing, shooting pain through his side.

“Get up.”

He dragged himself to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on the rail and comforting the pain in his side with his other arm. It hurt to breathe. There was something wrong with his ribs. He looked up and found himself staring at an image of ops on D’Qar, people busy at their stations in the background, and General Organa standing in front of it all.

“Say hello,” Grandel said.

Apparently Poe didn’t respond quickly enough. At Grandel’s gesture, one of the stormtroopers slammed his foot into the side of Poe’s right knee. He caught himself on the rail before he went down, but that didn’t stop his scream or the _crunch_ his knee made.

“Poe.”

Poe flinched at the tone of Grandel’s voice. He straightened as best he could, trying to find a position where his knee didn’t blaze with pain. He couldn’t find one. “Hello, General.”

“Are you okay?”

_Come get me. Please, take me out of here. Take me home. General, please._

“I’m fine, General. Not the best hospitality I’ve ever had, but what can you do?”

This was the kind of exchange they were supposed to have—false bravado on his part—but the General was frowning, her eyes fixed on him like she was trying to see something. Or say something. But Poe couldn’t think to decipher it. The room kept tilting. His hands were too sweat-slick to hold onto the railing. The image of the General went fuzzy, like the holodisplay was fritzing.

“Now that you’ve seen him, what do you say about our proposition?”

“We don’t trade one life for another, Captain.” The subtle emphasis in her voice on their difference in rank nearly made Poe smile. It would have if he hadn’t closed his eyes as tight as he could to stave off the dizziness and nausea. Vomiting in front of the General was a disgrace, and vomiting in front of Grandel would have led to more pain. “No matter how much we value either one. The Rebellion didn’t trade for me when we fought the Empire, and the Resistance won’t trade now. He knows what we all know; that the Resistance is larger than any one of us. Even Poe. Even me.”

“Poe, come here.”

He was all of two steps away, but his leg couldn’t support him. Refusal would only make things worse. Probably the Stormtroopers would be given permission to break his _other_ knee, and he would still be expected to walk when Grandel ordered him to. He did his best—a bare touch of his foot to the ground just long enough for him to take another step—but he let out a broken sob at the agony in his leg. Everything went dark for a few heartbeats, but when his eyes cleared, he was standing on his left foot in front of Grandel, shoulders heaving as he tried to breathe through the pain.

And then casually—so casually it shocked even Poe—Grandel reached out and grabbed Poe by the throat. He heard the General say something, but the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears drowned her out. Poe had enough time to grab Grandel’s wrist, but his vision was already narrowing to pinpricks.

He was barely clinging to consciousness when Grandel released him, flinging him aside like a discarded toy—or a tool he had no use for. Poe’s head struck the railing—he heard a great metallic ringing—and everything went black.

 

Poe knew he was dreaming because nothing hurt.

The door to his cell was cracked open, spilling enough yellow light into the room for him to see shapes and shadows and not much else. He was sitting up and his left side was warm. His head had fallen forward, and he wasn’t quite able to lift it to see what was going on.

He did manage to tilt his head to the side and see the silver of a bandolier and a bowcaster leaning against a furry leg. Chewbacca?

He was either dreaming or dead. He wasn’t sure which he preferred.

“Did you hear me?” The light brown fabric he’d seen from the corner of his eyes moved and Luke’s face entered Poe’s field of vision. He was frowning. “You can go back to sleep in just a minute, but I need you to answer my question.”

“Question?” Poe’s voice was thick, like his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Everything was moving so slowly, except when it wasn’t. For a few seconds, Luke moved in slow motion, then he was standing, and Poe hadn’t seen him move.

“Did Grandel tell anyone where we were?”

Who? Did Grandel tell who where who was?

A sigh. “I’m sorry, Poe, but I need to know.”

There was a pressure at the base of his skull— _inside_ the base of his skull. Intangible fingers dug through his mind. He rebelled at the sensation, pushing back, squeezing his eyes shut. This was Ren—but Ren was dead on Starkiller.

Poe wanted to wake up. Being awake was preferable to this nightmare.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Poe. Don’t fight me.”

It wasn’t the razed path of destruction Ren had left behind, but the more he resisted, the more shards of glass dragged through his mind. Each shard woke an echo of pain deep in his head, the hot pain of a cracked and broken skull, the battered soft tissue beneath it.

“Rey,” Luke said.

A small hand pressed to the side of Poe’s face. “Poe, can you look at me?”

He managed to open his eyes to try to find Rey’s face in the darkness. She was standing above him, smiling down at him.

“He doesn’t want to hurt you. We’re taking you home, but we need to know if Grandel told anyone where we were.”

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

“Poe?” Rey prodded.

He felt subtle waves of an emotion starting from some place outside of him. A calmness, a peace. It didn’t seem to be trying to manipulate him.

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

Serenity.

Slowly, sluggishly, he began to understand. The pain faded, leaving only the strange sensation of touch against his mind, and then even that vanished. Luke lifted a comlink to his lips. “Artoo, go ahead. We’ll meet you at the ship.”

Poe heard an affirmative beep through the comlink, then the ship shuddered beneath them. Alarms wailed in the hallway, sending agonizing stabs of pain through his mind. Poe must have cried out—he heard his own voice among the alarms—and covered his ears to try block out the sound. Arms lifted him carefully, but his knee had been stable while he’d been sitting, now gravity bent the joint and Poe sobbed.

Chewbacca warbled what sounded like an apologetic noise.

Luke moved in front of him again, his lightsaber casting a green glow over his skin. “You’re going to feel very weak again soon, but you don’t have to fight it. I was able to give you some strength while I was probing your mind, but it’s already going to have started fading. We’re getting you out of here.”

A blue bar of molten light appeared on Poe’s other side, and then there was nothing.

 

_Pressure on his face, igniting pain in his bruises. A hand—fingertips damp with something—closed on his wrist and held him in place. “It’s just bacta, Commander. A salve. It’s all I can do for you here.” A woman’s voice he didn’t recognize._

_He couldn’t open his eyes. His mind wouldn’t work. He should have been able to think faster than this._

Commander _was him._ Bacta salve _was a medicine._ Here _was a ship. What ship? It couldn’t have been_ Suppression _. These engines sounded different. Closer. A smaller ship._

_The pressure was back on his face, spreading a cooling gel in its wake. The bacta. They were healing him. Why? To torture him again?_

 

_He was being lifted, pressed against a warm blanket of fur—Chewbacca? That had been a dream. He was on_ Suppression _. Where had Chewbacca come from?_

There is no emotion, there is peace… There is no passion, there is serenity.

_A Wookie still in captivity? Were there any of them left?_

_Voices spoke quietly around him. He could pick out phrases—_ multiple concussion, neurological damage— _and then another voice. A man’s voice he hadn’t heard in person in years._

_“You’re going to be all right. Go ahead and sleep.”_

 

_“He’s seizing!”_

 

_“He’s going to be okay.”_

_“Where’s Finn?”_

_“He’ll be here soon. He stayed until the last transport.”_

_“I’m not sure he’ll get here soon enough.”_


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you guys were all so sweet about the month I made you wait for the last chapter, I churned out a new one. And I know I was estimating seven chapters of this monstrosity, but... it'll be longer than seven chapters. Hopefully not a lot. But definitely some.
> 
> Hard core Legends references in this chapter, but you don't need to know anything about Legends. It just might be more interesting if you do know them.
> 
> This chapter is mostly Poe (aren't they all?) but you'll get some more of the extended cast in a later chapter. Which won't be coming out in three days, because homework.

Poe was warm. He lay beneath thick blankets pulled up to his chin on a comfortable bed with his head resting on a soft pillow. He wasn’t on a cot and he wasn’t on a ship. The subtle hum of an engine always filled the air on a ship, no matter the size. Here was silent. Light shone through his his eyelids, but he couldn’t summon the strength to open his them.

A nearby door opened and closed, and Poe must have flinched away because a hand settled on the top of his head. It was too large to have belonged to either Rey or Dr. Kalonia. Lips pressed briefly to the center of his forehead, and then the sound of a chair moving closer to the bed.

“You’re safe, kiddo. Try to sleep some more.”

Poe slept.

 

_There were hands on him. Hands on his shoulders, his wrists, his ankles, his shins. There were voices all around him. He couldn’t understand them. Voices overlapping, saying different things at the same time. Finally a voice he recognized above all of the others, firm and steady and familiar. Dr. Kalonia._

_“Watch his knee. We still don’t have any bacta. Keep the pillow beneath his head. Good. He’s calming down.”_

_“Was it a seizure?”_

_“No, a nightmare I think.” A pause as she listened to a quiet murmur in the background. “No, it’s good. It means he’s conscious enough to react to his dreams. Master Skywalker, could you…?”_

_The hands on one of his wrists released and then a gentle touch to his forehead._

_“Sleep, Poe.” A gentle suggestion with the words. “Sleep and know you’re safe.”_

 

It took Poe a second to identify the quiet sound that accompanied him into consciousness. A man’s voice. Humming. Quietly under his breath, as if to himself. He knew that voice. He knew that song. Hope surged in his chest and Poe shoved it down. This could still be a trick. Oh, stars, don’t let this be a trick.

He swallowed, trying to work some moisture into his mouth. “Dad?”

The humming stopped and the edge of the bed dipped. A knuckle ran down his cheek. “Poe? Can you open your eyes for me, kiddo?”

Right. His eyes. That’s why everything was so dark.

Kes’s face was framed by a window, green-tinted light cascading in around him. Poe blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, but his face was still blurry. His father must have seen something because the next thing he knew, shades were drawing down over the windows. The outlines of Kes’s face were still unnatural and soft, but he could _see_ his father. Those were his eyes and his nose. He had more gray in his hair than the last time Poe had seen him, but it was still undeniably Kes.

“They said your eyes would be sensitive for a while.”

“ _Dad_?”

“Yeah, kiddo, it’s me. You’re safe.”

Poe drew in a breath to say something, but his breath caught in his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut to stave off the emotion that overwhelmed him. He tried to bite back the tears, but he couldn’t. He covered his face with his hands and sobbed.

Kes leaned down and wrapped his arms around Poe, cradling him the way he had when Poe had come running to his father for comfort as a child, fresh from falling from a tree or some fright from the forest. “It’s okay, Poe. You’re going to be okay. The _Suppression_ has been destroyed. They’re gone.”

Poe buried his face against his father’s shoulder and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. He didn’t know why he was crying or why he couldn’t stop. Kes let him cry until he felt hollow and empty, then he leaned back and brushed some tears from his son’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Poe began, acutely ashamed. He hadn’t cried like that, without the impetus of pain, in decades. Kes shook his head.

“Your mother and I had both been sent on missions we weren’t supposed to survive, Poe. I know. I’ve been there, and I sat with Shara after missions like this. I understand.”

The tears had exhausted him and his eyes stung, but to go back to sleep was to return to that place of darkness and loneliness. Kes still sat at the edge of the bed, watching Poe, patient and waiting.

“H-how did—? Where…?” Poe trailed off, trying to decide which question to ask first.

“The Princess found me. She said you’d been sent on a mission and she’d spoken with you. She was…” Kes hesitated, looking aside. “She was afraid that if she waited until they rescued you to contact me, it would be too late by the time I got here.”

Poe felt suddenly guilty. He’d spoken with his father occasionally, more frequently than some of the pilots spoke with their families, but it had been so long since his mother’s death that he sometimes forgot he was the last family his father had. He reached out to take Kes’s hand and squeezed it briefly, drawing a strained smile to his father’s face. Kes looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

Poe heard a quiet whistling from somewhere below him, and Kes looked down. “I’m going to help you sit up for just a second, okay? Let me know if it hurts.”

Of course it would hurt, but he nodded. His father eased him forward far enough that Poe could see a little ball of orange and white rocking back and forth at Kes’s feet. Poe let out a breath that maybe was supposed to be a laugh. He couldn’t reach for the droid and leaning forward any further was out of the question.

“Hey, Beebee.”

Clearly someone had impressed the importance of quiet on the droid, because he beeped barely loud enough for Poe to hear him.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m gonna be okay.”

A louder, sadder whistle and Poe tried not to flinch at the noise. BB-8 blipped apologetically.

“It’s okay, bud. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have helped.”

BB-8 assured him he would stay quiet—and stay in the room to watch over him—then rolled back into a corner where he could watch both Poe and the door. Poe smiled and let his father help him back down. Through the window he could see the shape of trees drifting in the wind, and he realized this hospital room was different than the one he’d been in before.

“This isn’t D’Qar.” His voice still sounded raw and unnatural in his ears, but the words were coming out more clearly. He no longer felt like he had to fight to keep his letters from all slurring together like he had on… like he had before.

“The old Rebel base on Dantooine. You bought them enough time to get everyone and everything off D’Qar.”

Poe was rapidly losing his fight against exhaustion. There were so many more things he needed to ask about, so many more people.

“You need your sleep.”

“Wait,” Poe said, fighting to keep his eyes open for a few more seconds. “Finn? Where’s Finn?”

His father smoothed Poe’s hair back from his forehead. “He’s fine. He’s here whenever the Princess doesn’t have work for him to do.”

Poe nodded to himself and his eyes closed. The last thing he felt was his father smoothing the blankets around him and another kiss to his forehead.

 

_Poe was standing in a room bathed in gentle light. He was warm, and everything was vaguely, comfortably familiar. Poe turned in a slow circle, and between one blink and another, the room darkened. The walls turned to dull gray metal. His left knee crumpled beneath him, and he dropped to the floor._

_He was kneeling in front of a cot on the cold metal of a ship’s deck._

_“No. No, no, no.”_

_“No, what, Poe?”_

_He tried to close his eyes, but that did nothing to block out the sight of black boots walking toward him._

_“You’re dead,” Poe whispered. “You’re dead.”_

_“Did daddy dearest tell you that?” Grandel crouched down beside him and brought his lips close to Poe’s ear. “How do you know you’re not dead and I’m not standing over your body laying on the floor of my ship? How do you know we’re not both dead—that the General whom you will kill and die for left you and ran when she destroyed us—and you won’t spend the rest of eternity screaming?”_

_“Please, please, no. No, just let me go home.”_

_“Where is home? The planet you left when you were old enough to fly? Any of the Resistance bases you’ve fled, leaving the locals to pay for your crimes? That ship, that X-wing, I shot out from beneath you? I_ saved _you. You would have died out there, alone in space.”_

_“No, stop.”_

_And then a whisper of a voice out of nowhere and everywhere. “You don’t need to touch him, but it helps when you’re first learning. It can be comforting for him, as well. Good, Rey. Can you find him?”_

_Another whisper. “He’s so afraid.”_

_“That’s what these dreams do. They feed on fear and pain and anger. He’s very afraid; he’s in pain; and… can you feel it? He’s angry at so much, at himself, at the Resistance, at the First Order. Find him, Rey. Show him he’s safe.”_

_“How?”_

_“Focus on your memories. Remember what that feels like and show him.”_

_Light blossomed in a corner of the room, flickering tentatively at first, but it grew in a rush enveloping the room and then him._

 

Poe had become disconcertingly familiar with the sensation of rising to consciousness. He had to dig his way through muck and grave dirt and ash. But every time he felt himself rising, reaching for the world, he shied back. Here there was no pain, and he could remember his conversation with his father and he could keep imagining that he would wake up on D’Qar or Dantooine or Yavin 4. Anywhere but the ship.

Here, in this in-between place, everything was a dream.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, or how long he could keep fighting his body’s urge to wake up, but when the light grew brighter, he squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself back down. These nightmares were better than what reality may have been.

 

_“Resistance scum.”_

_Poe flinched awake on his cot. The door to his cell was wide open, but red and white flames rushed down the corridor, although none of the fire entered the cell. He looked up and nearly retched._

_Ami’s skin was blackened and cracked. One side of her face was nearly untouched, but as he watched the flames started in her hair and crawled across her face until she was unrecognizable. She held a box out to him._

_“No. No, Ami, I’m sorry.”_

_She took a stumbling step toward him, blue flames licking across her shoulders and down the front of her legs. “You know how this goes. Eat.”_

_He couldn’t look away. She pushed the box toward his chest and the moment his hands touched it, the flames burst through the door. Ami screamed, clawing at the flames, trying desperately to put them out. But it was too late. The maelstrom had already claimed her, and it crawled the walls and leapt for Poe._

 

“Poe!”

He was sitting up in a hospital bed, wrapped from behind in strong, familiar arms. It was dark in the room, moonlight casting a ghostly silver light across the floor. He recognized the hands on his chest, the voice in his ear.

“Finn?” His voice cracked.

A warm breath of relief against the back of his neck. “Thank _everything_. Yeah, it’s me. I’m gonna help you lay back down, but we’ve got to watch your knee. It’s not completely healed yet.”

Finn began to work his way free, but Poe grabbed at his arm to stop him. Finn pressed his cheek to Poe’s from behind. “I’m not leaving you. I just want to make sure you’re comfortable. I’m not leaving. I won’t leave you.”

Poe let out a shaking breath and released Finn’s wrist. Finn slid free, keeping one arm behind Poe’s shoulders.

“Lay back. I’ve got you.”

He was sore, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as he’d expected it to. Less, even, than when his father had helped him sit to see BB-8. When Finn straightened Poe’s left leg—that did hurt. He groaned at the pain, biting down on his lip to keep from crying out.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Dr. Kalonia will kill me if your knee gets out of alignment again. Every time you have a nightmare… Even with this brace, we need to be careful.”

Poe had broken out in a cold sweat by the time Finn finished. It must have been only a few seconds, but he was breathing raggedly. Finn bit his lower lip and took a few steps toward the head of the bed.

“Can I…?”

“Can you what?” Poe asked when he’d gotten enough air in his lungs to speak. Finn looked so hesitant, like he wanted fourteen different things at once.

“Dr. Kalonia said you might not want anyone near you for a while. I just…”

Poe managed to inch himself to the side and gesture for him. “Come here.”

Finn let out a breath that sounded almost like a sob, and he slid into bed, helping Poe sit up far enough to get behind him and then let Poe rest back on his chest. Poe shuddered and Finn began to release him, but he shook his head.

“Please don’t go.”

The arms tightened again. They must have healed his ribs while he was unconscious, because he felt only a dull ache. “I won’t.”

The exhaustion crept through his mind, lured by the steady rise and fall of Finn’s chest. He couldn’t go back to those dreams. He wanted this to be real. “Finn?” When Finn made a sound to show he was listening, Poe took a deep breath to gather his courage. “Who…” He couldn’t ask who died. Not yet. He wasn’t ready for that grief. It was the final, ultimate betrayal of his pilots, but it was too much to hear those names. “Is Snap okay? Jessika?”

“They’re fine. He’s scouting the outer reaches of the system for any signs of the First Order. Jessika’s leading Red and Blue Squadrons right now. She was here about an hour ago, but Leia needed her to run a mission.”

He seemed to be waiting for Poe to ask the next question, but he couldn’t do it. He turned his head to get more comfortable and slept.

 

When Poe woke this time it was to gentle hands massaging the muscle just above his knee. He blinked blearily at the shape bent over his leg in the dim light. He must have shifted because she looked up at him.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Dr. Kalonia said. “I’m almost done here, and then we can talk. You feel up to staying awake for a while?”

“Yeah, I think so.” And he did, he realized. For the first time in… Poe honestly had no idea how long. He didn’t know how long he’d been on _Suppression_ or how long he’d been unconscious.

Kalonia turned to one of the droids at her side. “Get Poe something to eat. A broth. Some bread if—”

“No!”

Kalonia looked at him suspiciously, but finally she nodded. “Just the broth then.” The droid blipped its affirmation and spun, heading for the door.

“We have droids that can do this,” she said, “but for you, I thought you’d rather it be me.”

Her candidness surprised him a little, as did her perception. “I… Thank you.”

“I sent Finn to his room to get some sleep. He stayed with you all night.”

Her fingers dug into a tender spot along his knee and he let out a sound that was uncomfortably close to a whimper for his taste.

“This is going to hurt, but until we can get you up and walking on your own, I need to keep your muscles strong. I can get you a sedative if you want.”

“No. I don’t want a sedative.” Sedatives wouldn’t let him go when he wanted to escape the nightmares. “Go ahead.”

“Remember to breathe.”

Her hands sent little sparks of agony up his leg every time she pressed. He twisted his fingers in the blankets and tried to heed her gentle reminders to “Breathe, Poe.”

He was shaking when she finally finished and reaffixed the brace around his knee. Kalonia picked up a cup from the tray near her and slipped her arm behind Poe’s shoulders, helping him sit forward. She held the cup up to his lips.

“Drink. It’s just some water. We’ve had you on IV water and nutrients, but you’re still a little dehydrated.”

The water was cold and Poe wanted to sob with relief when he tasted it. The doctor let him have small sips at first until his hands stopped shaking, then she passed the cup to him for to finish. She adjusted the bed so he was sitting on his own and turned to retrieve the broth the droid must have brought while she was working on his knee.

Poe grimaced.

Dr. Kalonia moved the bedside tray into position with one hand and put the broth in front of him. She put her hands on her hips.

“You need to eat.”

“You said I’ve been on a nutrient drip. I’m not hungry.”

“You eat or I feed you. Don’t think I didn’t hear about what happened last time. I knew you weren’t eating; I could see it whenever I looked at you. I had hoped you would come to me or Master Skywalker or one of your friends for help. The only reason I didn’t step in is because you were starting to look better.” The severe look on her face softened and she sat in the chair near the bed. “I know you’re hungry, Poe. What’s wrong?”

He rubbed the palms of his hands on the blankets, squeezing his eyes shut to try banish the memory of Ami holding out that damned box. Fire. Flames everywhere. Skin blackening and cracking and the _screaming_. “I can’t.” Once he’d started speaking, he couldn’t keep the words in. They were choking him as he tried to get them out. “When they fed me… If they fed me… this woman, Ami, brought stale bread and warm water. And that’s all I can taste. Nothing tastes right. It makes me sick and I feel like I’m…” He rubbed at his wrists. “I can feel the chair again and I feel like I’m back.”

“After what you’ve gone through, that’s normal.”

Poe looked over at her, his mouth half open in surprise. “Normal?”

“It’s well documented in prisoners of war. I’ve seen it happen sometimes in refugees. It’s going to take you some time, but you’re going to get better. You’ve got people here who love you, and they’ll all give you whatever you let them, but, Poe, you have to let them.”

Poe couldn’t find the words to either argue or agree, but Kalonia didn’t make him suffer in silence for long.

“Last night, your father slept in his room for the first time since he got here. Finn didn’t argue with me when I sent him away only because you were awake last night. The only reason Rey hasn’t stuck her head in here every twenty minutes is because she’s off-planet with Chewbacca and Master Skywalker. These people _love you_ , Poe. If you can’t eat for yourself right now, eat for them. Eat for Kes.”

Poe regarded the covered bowl in front of him warily. Broth couldn’t taste like bread. This was as good of a place to start as any. He worked the cover free and picked up the spoon. His hands were shaking, but not so badly he wouldn’t be able to manage it. He dipped the spoon in the broth, hardly more than a coating of the liquid. It didn’t taste of ash or stale bread, but it didn’t taste like much of anything. He thought that it should, but it held no actual flavor he could determine. He took another bite and Dr. Kalonia seemed to relax.

They sat in silence while Poe ate. He couldn’t stomach much, but he got a few dozen spoonfuls down before he gathered the courage to ask the question that had been bothering him

“How long have I been…” Poe hesitated, “gone?”

“You’ve been under my care for four standard weeks. We kept you sedated for most of it. You were on _Suppression_ for a week. Plus a day or so of travel to get here.”

Twenty-five days minimum. Nearly three-quarters of a month. His hand trembled and the spoon clattered to the tray. He jerked away from the noise. Kalonia moved the tray and put her hand on his forearm.

“It’s going to get better.” He scoffed and she tapped him gently with her index finger. “You’ve known me for a long time. Have I ever lied to a patient?”

He couldn’t remember her ever lying to anyone. He’d watched her tell families their son was dying; that their daughter’s body lived, but her mind was dead. He’d been there when she told Chaisin’s family he was dying. He’d been the one to catch his mother when her knees buckled.

She was honest, brutally so, but there was a kindness in the truth.

“No, you haven’t.”

She nodded. “How are your eyes?”

“Better, I think. I still can’t look at the light.”

“Short of an emergency override, the lights in this room can’t go higher than twenty percent. You had a lot of damage to your occipital lobe and some to your temporal lobe. The regenerators have done their work, but it takes time to heal from that kind of injury. Your eyes will get back to normal, no vision loss, no light sensitivity. It will just take a few days. Physically, you’ll be able to fly again soon.”

_Physically_. The qualifier stung. Physically he could pilot. Mentally… There was no use for a pilot whose hands shook or who flinched at noises.

“Anything else?” Poe asked.

“Your ribs are mostly healed. They’ll be fine by the time we’ve got you on your feet. You had some minor strains to your shoulder. Your skull may be tender for a few more days, but the breaks were clean. Your knee is going to take more work.”

He became aware of the dull ache at her words. “How much more?”

“We don’t have bacta. I’ve got my sources everywhere looking, and the salve they used on your face on your way here is no good for injuries like this. Master Skywalker is working on something that may help, but if he can’t find it, you’ll be on crutches for two weeks. Maybe less. You’ve always bounced back from broken bones faster than you have any right. I want you in this bed for another three days, absolute minimum. Then you get to learn how to walk. Again.” She stood up. “I know you’re tired of hearing this, but sleep some more.”

 

So Poe slept. He ate a few bites of food when Kalonia or his father sat with him and insisted. He spent his nights buried in Finn’s arms. That didn’t stave off all the nightmares, but it held the worst of them at bay. On the third day, Poe was sitting up in bed when the door opened and Luke walked in, trailed by a Mon Calamari he didn’t recognize. He started to straighten, but Luke waved off the reflex.

“It’s good to see you awake.” He gestured to the Mon Calamari behind him. “Poe, this is Ambassador Cilghal. Ambassador, Commander Poe Dameron. She’s agreed to take a look at you and see if she can help you heal.”

“Former ambassador,” Cilghal corrected, moving past Luke to reach the side of the bed. “My uncle has told me a great deal about you. I’m glad to meet you, even if it is under these circumstances.”

Poe was taken aback by her words, and he stammered for a second, trying to figure out what to say in response. “I… Thank you. Your uncle?”

“Admiral Ackbar. With your permission, I would see your wounds.”

Poe glanced at Luke, then nodded. “I guess?”

He expected her to physically look at his knee, but she only stepped next to the bed and closed her eyes. After a few seconds of silence, she opened her eyes again and looked at Poe. “I can heal you. I will need to put you in a healing trance.”

That sounded like giving up far too much of his control for him. “Healing trance?”

“It’s like sleeping,” Luke said. “Healing is not one of my talents, otherwise I would do it for you myself. There is no one in the galaxy I would trust to heal over Cilghal.”

“Are you a Jedi?” Poe asked. He was hopelessly confused. He’d thought Luke was the last. Luke and Rey, now.

“No, but one doesn’t need to be a Jedi to learn to use the living Force to heal. Are you ready?”

The thought of surrendering to a healing trance, whatever it was, sent cold prickles of panic through his chest. Luke moved to his side and spoke in a quiet voice.

“You will be safe, Poe. I swear to you, you’ll wake up and you’ll be able to walk without pain. I’ll stay with you until then. I trust Cilghal with my life. I would trust her with Leia’s life.”

Poe supposed that was the highest praise anyone could get from Luke Skywalker. He took a deep, steadying breath, and nodded. “Okay.”

Luke had been right. It was just like falling asleep. His eyes closed before he could even think of fighting it, and he sank into the trance.

Voices sank into his subconscious as he slowly began to come back into himself. Luke’s was right next to him, Cilghal sounded a bit further away. Her voice was strained and she spoke slowly.

“I have healed his body, but only he can heal his mind.”

“I know.”

“If he could use the Force, you wouldn’t simply say ‘I know.’”

A pause, and then a sigh. “You’re right. But he’s strong. Stronger than most. I have to believe that if anyone can survive this, it’s him.”

This time it was Cilghal who paused. “Luke, I’m sorry.”

Luke made a quiet, pained sound that Poe had never expected to hear from the Jedi Master. “You don’t—“

“I could have saved her. I chose to save you instead. I don’t regret that choice. I never will. I regret the pain it caused you, but you know what she would have said if I had chosen her?”

Luke murmured something that Poe couldn’t quite catch. Cilghal, apparently, had.

“Yes. And she would have been right. He’s waking up.”

It took Poe a moment to understand they were talking about him. Luke’s hand pressed to his shoulder. “Poe? Do you think you’re ready to try standing?”

Poe shifted on the bed and found nothing hurt. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, marveling at the fact that his body _responded_ the way it was supposed to. Nothing hitched when he breathed, no pain lanced through his leg when he bent his knee. Poe looked over to Cilghal, but his thanks stopped in his throat. She was wan and exhausted, slouched in a chair. The light that shone from the windows was different than it had been when the trance began. How long had she been working on him?

“I’m all right, Commander. Your bones and muscles have knit, but you will still be very weak.”

Luke held out his hand to help Poe swing his legs over the bed. He was weak—alarmingly so—but aside from a residual ache on either side of his knee, he was pain-free for the first time in months. Even his vision had improved. The sunlight didn’t blur Luke’s face or send pain shooting through his skull.

Luke positioned himself beside the bed, one arm wrapped around Poe’s waist, his other hand beneath Poe’s elbow. Poe had to wonder how many people Luke had helped with their first steps after an injury. He seemed to know all the steps, where to lift and pull and where to provide steady support as he helped Poe to his feet.

Without the Jedi Master, Poe would have ended up in a heap on the ground, a position that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him. But gradually he steadied and Luke was able to release him until he kept only his hand below Poe’s elbow. When Poe tried to take a step, it was only Luke’s quick reaction time and the Force that allowed him to keep his feet.

The next try went better. He managed a shaky step, then a second, then a third. But he could barely hold himself up to make a fourth. Luke helped him to sit back on the bed. “You’ll regain your strength quickly. A day at most, and you’ll be up on your own again.” Luke cast a glance backward at the closed door. “Do you feel up for a visitor?”

The exhaustion was starting to creep back through him, but there was something in the way Luke stood, intent both on the door and Poe, that made him nod. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Luke smiled at him, and it still didn’t look right. There was still too much in him that hadn’t found a reason to smile in too long. A raw nerve Cilghal’s words had touched. “I’ll help Cilghal out to rest, then.” He offered Poe one last tight smile, then bent to help the Mon Calamari to her feet. She leaned heavily on him as they left the room. For a moment the doorway stayed empty, then the general appeared, hesitating just inside the door.

“General?” Poe’s reflex was to stand, but the thought of rising again was vaguely exhausting. He began to try to get to his feet anyway.

General Organa shook her head, crossing to the bed and reaching for him. She thought better of it and let her hand drop to her side before she touched him. “No, it’s okay. Stay there.”

Poe nodded his thanks and slouched back down.

“Commander… I’m sorry I had to ask you to do this.”

Poe’s gaped at her. He’d never heard the general apologize to anybody and certainly not for an order she had to give. General Organa’s mouth was tight and her back straight as though she expected… something. Some recrimination, some reaction from Poe that would validate the need for her apology.

“General,” Poe began. He had to stop and swallow around a lump in his throat. “General, no. You did what you had to do. You did what anyone would do in your position. The Resistance is more important that any man’s life. It always has been.”

The General sat down heavily in the chair across from Poe and this… this vulnerability… from her was shocking. If he thought he wouldn’t have ended up on the ground, he would have tried to stand and go to her, but seeing him collapse probably wouldn’t have helped.

“No, Poe. There’s always another way. I have lived my life only giving orders that I would have carried out myself. I have led men and women to their deaths, and I have seen families devastated, but I could sleep at night knowing _I_ would have gone in their place if had been given the order. I’ve…” General Organa looked up at him again. Her face was a mask, a facade, of strength, but the words sounded as though they were being ripped from her without her permission. It was too private. “I’ve watched survivors come home and known— _known_ —that the person I sent out there was dead, and that their body has come back, but not _them_.”

“I—“ Poe didn’t have any sort of response. He’d been prepared to see the general again when he was up on his feet, but he hadn’t expected this from her. Nothing in his training or his life had given him any sort of idea what the appropriate response was. “General, please, don’t. I’m gonna be fine.” And he wished he could believe that. Now that he wasn’t in pain or dosed with painkillers, there was a cold knot in the center of his chest. Familiar and aching and Poe just wanted it to go away.

Her lips were pinched, but she rose and put her hand on his shoulder. “You are incredibly important to this Resistance, Poe. No matter what I said to him,” and Poe couldn’t _not_ shudder, even if she didn’t say his name, “we will always come for you.”

She looked over him once more and then turned for the door. Before he could think better of it, Poe called for her.

“General?” She stopped and turned back to look at him. “Just now, Cilghal mentioned something to Luke. Something about a woman. Who was she?”

Some of her impenetrable mask slipped, but it was back just as quickly as it had left. “His wife. My son killed her. Try to get some more rest. Dr. Kalonia wants to get you up as soon as you’re strong enough.”


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe deals with exhaustion... poorly. We meet more pilots. 
> 
> Finals are over next week and then my life will return to a more reliable posting schedule. But I _promise_ I'm not giving up on this!

Kalonia only managed to keep Poe in isolation—aside from his father and Finn—for two days after Cilghal healed him. She promised that he would be moved to his own room any day now, but each time an untouched plate of food left the room, that day just kept getting pushed back.

Unsurprisingly Snap was the first person to slip through her guard in one of the few moments Kes stepped out, late at night. Poe was sitting up, stretching the stiff muscles around his knee when he heard a quiet knock on the door, then it hissed open.

“Hey,” Snap said.

Poe pushed himself gingerly to his feet. Cilghal’s healing held; he had no reason to think it wouldn’t, but the absence of pain after so long still came as a surprise to him. Snap took a step forward as if to catch him, but Poe was steady—more or less—on his own.

Snap whistled softly. “I mean, they said ‘Jedi healer’ but I thought that was just… short for something. I didn’t realize it was an actual Jedi healer.” He looked Poe up and down, disbelieving. “I thought we’d lost you, but you-you look… good.”

Poe sat back on his bed and gestured for Snap to sit in the chair across from him. “I look alive, anyway.” He gritted his teeth and forced himself to meet Snap’s eyes. “How bad was it?”

“This can wait until you feel better—“

“It can’t. Just tell me.”

“Twenty.”

That number hit him hard enough to make his stomach roil. He’d known it was a lot, but to lose that many. The Resistance had so few pilots to begin with. They’d have to start recruiting again, but now that the New Republic was destroyed, there would be a lot of pilots without loyalties, and—

“Poe!”

Poe jerked. “What?”

Snap raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms over his chest. “I could see you spiraling down one of your blackholes. The general has already sent out recruiters to the planets with most Resistance pilots. We’ve got Stiletto squadron hitting the planets most likely to have willing recruits.”

Poe managed a weak smile. He’d missed Snap. He’d missed the years of friendship that made everything easy and familiar between them. Finn settled the ragged parts of Poe’s shattered soul. There was so much history between Poe and Snap, though, that he could forget what had happened for heartbeats at a time. This could have been any situation that had landed Poe in the hospital wing. But he could never pretend for long enough.

“Who were they?”

“It’s been taken care of. I can get you a report, but you don’t need to hear this right now.”

“Snap, please.”

Snap groaned and ran his hands over his face. “Come on. Don’t do this to yourself, not now. Just get better. Get stronger. I’ll… I’ll get a report for you. I know you love reports. And…” He trailed off, looking up at Poe again. “I’d rather you just ordered me to tell you.”

Poe shrugged. “I could, but I won’t.”

“Dr. Kalonia is going to murder me. You’re going to be coming to my funeral. You’re going to be speaking at my funeral. _She_ ordered me not to get you upset.” Snap rubbed his hands over his face again and took a deep breath. Then he straightened his shoulders and began listing off dead pilots by squadron, and Poe understood why Kalonia hadn’t wanted him to find out yet. Some of them were so young, chosen to replace the pilots who had died over Starkiller. Most of them were second generation. Their parents had flown with Poe’s, and for nearly all of them there wouldn’t be a third generation. One of the families had left an orphan behind, both of his parents dead to keep Grandel’s attention fixated on Poe.

And Poe hated himself a little bit, because with each name Snap listed, he grew more relieved that his closest friends weren’t on that list. He had no _right_ to feel relieved. Some of these pilots were little more than children, and he dared be happy that they weren’t the people he’d risen through the ranks with.

He hadn’t even realized they’d been sitting in silence until Snap started speaking again.

“We tried to protect them, Jessika and I. Tal’dira and Gavin, too. We did the best we could, Poe.”

“I know you did.”

He did know. Snap, Jessika, Tal’dira, and Gavin wouldn’t have done anything less. He could almost picture the battle, the four of them shepherding the young ones through their first battle. But even the four of them were no match for a Star Destroyer and its TIE fighters. Poe could have done nothing different, but he could have died with them. He could have… could have what? He was always realistic about his skills as a pilot; to be anything but realistic was to drive yourself mad with _what if_ s and _if only_ s. The only good he could have done was to not accept General Organa’s orders, and then more people may have been killed.

Then Snap’s words worked their way into Poe’s mind. “Darklighter’s back? And Tal’dira?”

“And all of Black Squadron. Oddy Muva, Karé Kun, and L’ulo. Well, and Jessika and I, obviously. General Organa called them back before you left. Gavin made sure the general knew he was…” Snap hesitated, clearly casting about for the right word, “displeased with her decision. He had a few choice words for her.”

“What did she do to him?”

“He’s on escort duty until she’s certain he’s learned his lesson.”

“That could be a while.”

“Well, you know the Darklighters. And Black Squadron. The rest of them are awfully protective of you.” Snap stood up. “I’d better go before Dr. Kalonia makes up an illness and suspends me for taking too much of your time.” He put on a remarkable version of her voice. “He’s meant to be _resting_ , Captain Wexley!”

Poe snorted. “Go ahead. It was good to see you.”

All the mirth faded from Snap’s face and something darker replaced it, an expression Poe hadn’t seen since they stood before a hologram of Starkiller base and they’d begun to understand what the pilots facing the Death Star had felt. “I was worried I wouldn’t see you again, so… likewise.”

Snap looked Poe up and down one last time, then headed for the door.

Kes slipped in as soon as Snap exited. He had stayed close while Poe while he’d been recuperating. Poe probably should have been annoyed at the incessant hovering, but his father’s solid strength was reassuring. He let Poe feel a little like a child again, like his father would fix whatever had gone wrong and everything would be okay again.

“He’s a good pilot to have under your command,” Kes said, sitting in the chair near Poe’s bed. “The other pilots respond well to him.”

“They like him. And they should. He’s a great pilot and a better friend than I deserve.”

Kes frowned, but he let it pass. “Did you eat dinner? Are you hungry?”

“No, not right now.”

Kes sighed, rising and taking one of Poe’s hands between both of his. “What can I do, Poe? How do I make this better for you? You need to eat.”

When Poe didn’t say anything, Kes sighed again. It was a hard, bitter sound. He backed away; Poe watched him from the corner of his eye.

“I can’t watch you kill yourself, Poe. I love you. You’re my son—my only child. But I can’t stand by and let you kill yourself.”

The door opened and closed and Poe groaned, covering his face with his hands and knotting his fingers in his hair. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted anything that would chase the numbness from his limbs, burn the ice from his chest. Wanted, wanted, wanted. He wanted to sleep.

BB-8 blipped a quiet question from the floor. Poe ignored him.

He couldn’t breathe. The blankets tangled around his legs and his hands shook as he tried to untangle them. He fought his way free, throwing the blankets aside and staggering toward the window. He pressed his forehead against it, letting the glass cool his skin. It was an anchor. Something he could grab onto. The cold was real. The cold was real and he could breathe.

Arms slipped around his waist. Poe jumped and he heard a quiet grunt of pain, but the arms didn’t let go.

“It’s just me.”

Poe slumped back into Finn’s arms. “Did I hurt you?”

He felt Finn shaking his head. “But if I’d known you were going to start throwing elbows, I would have been a little more prepared.”

Poe let out a breath that could have been a laugh at another time.

Finn began leading him from the window back toward the bed. He dimmed the lights on the way past the switch, then tugged the blankets down for Poe. Poe stood at the edge of the bed for a few heartbeats, looking Finn over. He was already in pajamas, and as Poe watched he stripped his t-shirt off, draping it over the back of a chair. Finn caught Poe’s eye and raised his eyebrows, gesturing at the bed.

Poe finally did smile at that. He tugged his own shirt off and let it fall to the floor. BB-8 squawked in annoyance when the shirt nearly fell on him as he retreated to his charging dock in the closet. Poe shook his head and then slid into bed. Finn joined him, pulling Poe in close before he could even get settled.

“What happened?” Finn asked, his voice quiet and right in Poe’s ear.

“I wasn’t hungry.”

That wasn’t any answer at all, but Finn accepted it. He stayed silent and let Poe twist in his arms until they were face to face.

“Snap told me. Who died.”

They were too close to really be able to look at each other properly, so Finn pulled back a little until he could focus on Poe’s face. His eyebrows were furrowed. “I thought he was going to wait until you were better.”

“I _am_ better, Finn.”

“Mmhm.”

Poe didn’t believe it either. He tucked himself back into Finn’s arms, resting his forehead against Finn’s chest.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I got a couple minutes last night. Maybe half an hour. But other than that, before Cilghal healed me.”

Finn’s arms tightened around him. “I should have been here.”

Poe shrugged, already drowsy with warmth. The heat of Finn’s body had brought some feeling back into Poe’s arms, cracked a layer of ice in his chest. Finn’s hands were gentle on his back, but Poe could feel the ragged skin of the scar from Ren’s lightsaber beneath his fingers when he draped his own arm over Finn’s waist.

There were other scars there, smaller ones that Finn wouldn’t explain. Poe knew better than to draw attention to them—they were relics of a life Finn had left behind. Instead he matched his breathing to Finn’s and let the steady rise and fall of his chest lull him to sleep.

 

_Poe opened his eyes. Ami—he thought it was Ami, oh, stars, those burns—stood in front of him. Her uniform was ragged and burned. Her hair was gone, only a few blackened, ragged chunks remained on skin that had burned to ashy white. Her face—Poe couldn’t look at her face. Pitted skin. Empty sockets where her eyes had been._

_He stumbled away, retching. Her head turned as if she watched him. Could she watch him with no eyes? Could she see?_

_One of her hands—skeletal, charred tendons barely holding on—held a metal box. As he watched, a tendon snapped free from its attachment at her wrist and dangled forward. She took a step toward him, but one of her legs didn’t work right. It dragged behind her and only supported her weight after she took the time to arrange it beneath her._

_He tried to back away, but there was nowhere for him to go. A wall behind him. Flames rose on either side of him, heat scalding his skin, and Ami took another step forward._

_“You left me. I was kind to you.”_

_“You gave me food,” Poe protested, but it sounded weak, even to his ears._

_“I didn’t hurt you. Wasn’t that kindness on_ Suppression _?”_

_Another step._

_Poe crumpled, covering his face with his hands. “No, no, no. Please, no.” He could still see her, the weeping, oozing burns across her stomach. “Please, I’m sorry._ I’m sorry! _I didn’t know—“_

_Hands grabbed him, hauling him to his feet, pulling him through flames as insubstantial as mist._

 

“I’m here. I’m here, Poe. Ssh, it’s okay.”

Poe pulled himself free, nearly falling, stumbling his way to the ‘fresher, dropping to his knees to vomit. But his stomach was just as empty now as it had been in his dream. Gentle hands carded through Poe’s hair until he was finished, then helped him to his feet.

Finn left Poe to wash his mouth, then came back with a blanket to drape over his shoulders. When their eyes met in the mirror, Poe’s stomach twisted with guilt. Finn’s dark eyes, fixed on Poe’s face, were concerned. He wrapped his arms around Poe’s waist, resting his chin on Poe’s shoulder.

Poe slumped, trusting Finn to keep him on his feet. They stayed in silence, Poe clutching at the sink with his head down and Finn’s solid, silent strength keeping him from falling apart.

At last, Finn took a deep breath. “Does sex help you sleep?”

Poe’s head snapped up, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “Finn—“

“Does it?”

“Sometimes.”

And then, while Poe watched their reflections, Finn pressed a kiss to the back of Poe’s neck. He worked the blanket free from Poe’s fingers and let it fall to the ground, kissing him again. Poe shuddered at the warmth of his breath ghosting across his cool skin. Finn flattened his hands, spreading his fingers across Poe’s chest and stomach.

Poe made a quiet, involuntary sound. “Finn, no, wait.”

Finn kissed the side of Poe’s neck one last time, then fell still, waiting for Poe to speak. The rise and fall of his chest when he breathed was distracting enough that Poe had to try twice to figure out what he was going to say, when all he really wanted to do was turn in Finn’s arms and pull him close. But using Finn like this… using him to sleep. It was worse than not sleeping at all.

“I—I don’t want…” Poe swallowed. “I don’t want you to do this for me.”

“Who else would I be doing it for?” Finn asked, amusement lightening his voice. “Rey? Luke?”

“Yourself. Us. If you wanted there to be an us.”

Poe silently cursed the way his voice shook. But they hadn’t kissed since Poe had taken off in the T-65, and aside from the few nights they’d spent together since his return, they’d hardly touched one another. He didn’t know. Maybe it had been something else. Fear. Loneliness. People kissed for a thousand reasons.

“Look at me.” Poe raised his eyes to look at him through the mirror, but Finn shook his head. “Not like that.”

Poe turned slowly until he was looking up at Finn’s face. Finn cupped Poe’s face the way Poe had held his the first time they kissed. And then Finn kissed him. Poe had forgotten what it felt like to have Finn’s lips against his. He’d forgotten the taste of Finn’s mouth. He was still obviously new at this, but he seemed to have a straight line to Poe’s heart, which stuttered when their lips touched.

Finn pulled away after a moment, and Poe barely managed to keep from chasing his lips for another kiss.

“I’m not offering to make some great sacrifice, Poe.”

Finn waited. He waited while Poe tried to find some reason in Finn’s eyes not to do this. This was wrong for so many reasons, not least of which was that he was so young. Nine years in age, as near as they could figure, but he’d been his own man for less than a year. He’d wanted—if this was going to be anything between them—to go slow. This wasn’t slow. This was using Finn for a night’s sleep. But this was also Finn.

Poe nodded.

Finn caught him by the hips and lifted him, and Poe was never going to be able to see Finn without a shirt again without remembering the flex of his muscles beneath his skin in the moonlight. It wasn’t far to the bed, and Poe had barely had time to realize he should probably have been helping somehow before Finn was easing him back onto it.

Poe thought he knew the answer to his question without asking, but he pressed his hand to the center of Finn’s chest, holding him in place. “Have you done any of this before?”

For a moment Finn’s confidence wavered. “I know the basic mechanics of it. And I’m a fast learner.”

Poe smiled, cupping Finn’s cheek with his free hand. “That’s not what I asked.”

“No. I haven’t. We—we weren’t… If they caught anyone…”

The fire of fury in Poe’s chest briefly chased away any of the cold in his body. The First Order had taken everything that it was to be human from Finn. Passion, joy. They’d molded him into a weapon with no thought for what that left behind.

“Poe?”

Poe let his hand drop from Finn’s chest, tugging him down for a kiss with a hand on the back of Finn’s neck. He would never know the man Finn should have been, but he had _this_ Finn, and that was enough.

“What about him?” Finn asked when they broke from the kiss.

Poe tilted his head to see where he was looking. “Beebee? He’s powered down for the night. He’ll wake up at dawn or if I got called to pilot. And that’s a little unlikely.”

“Good, ‘cause that’s weird.”

Poe laughed against Finn’s shoulder. He kissed a scar there, lifting his hips for Finn to slip his pants off. A moment later, Finn was back, muscle and heat and his half-hard length pressed against Poe’s thigh. Poe bit back a groan. He was in a hospital room, and a medical droid or Dr. Kalonia herself walking in was the last thing Poe could possibly want.

“Do you have—“

“Middle drawer. Kalonia used it when she massaged my knee. It’ll do.”

Finn left for a moment, then returned with the container of massage oil. He poured some into the palm of his hand and then, after a brief hesitation, he reached down and took Poe’s lax cock in his hand. Normally Poe would have been hard by now, pressing Finn back into the bed, aching and wanting.

And he did want. He did ache. The slide of Finn’s hand on him made him twist his hands in the blankets and bite his lip. He didn’t know if it was exhaustion or the chunk of ice in the center of his chest, but his body was slow to respond.

Poe had known Finn was a fast learner—Finn hadn’t had to tell _him_ that—but it was one thing to see him with a new technology. It was entirely another to have him turn that mind on Poe. His eyes were fixed on Poe’s face, watching his every reaction, learning what touches made him shudder. Slowly, finally, he felt heat coiling low in his stomach and his body began to respond.

Finn kissed him and raised himself up, aligning their bodies and sinking back down. Poe groaned, catching at Finn’s hip one one hand. He was still only half hard, but Finn’s solid weight above him and the thick heat of his cock against Poe’s were going a long way toward fixing that.

“What do you want, Finn?”

Finn met Poe’s eyes, a confused look on his face. “What do I want?”

Poe ran his fingertips along Finn’s cheek bone. “I’ve done this before. What do you want?”

“I…” He hesitated and Poe rolled his hips, drawing a startled sound from Finn’s lips. Finn drew in a sharp breath. “You,” he said at last. “I want… to be inside you.”

He’d never thought he’d heard those words from Finn, except in his guiltiest fantasies. And for a moment, that was all he could see—the fantasies where Finn had pressed him against a wall or bent him over his desk on D’Qar. His fantasies now were less… restrictive, but that didn’t stop another rush of arousal from rolling through him.

“Poe?” Finn asked. “I don’t have to—“

Poe tugged him down for a kiss, tangling his fingers in Finn’s hair. He hitched one leg up over Finn’s hip, bringing their arousals together, pressed between their bodies. Once they’d broken apart, after Poe had nipped at Finn’s lower lip hard enough to get a helpless jerk of Finn’s hips, Poe met Finn’s eyes and nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s… that’s good.”

“Are you sure?”

“If you ask me that again, I’m gonna hit you.”

Finn was a brilliantly fast learner. Within a few moments, Poe was rocking on Finn’s fingers, biting down on his lip to keep quiet. The stretch made him ache for more, for the press of _Finn_ inside of him. He pulled Finn back down for another kiss.

“C’mon, Finn,” Poe whispered against his lips. “Come on.” Poe winced at the loss as Finn withdrew his fingers and let his head drop back to the pillows while Finn reached for the oil again to begin slicking himself. Finn leaned over him and kissed the side of Poe’s neck, a soft scrape of his teeth sending shudders down Poe’s spine.

“You’re sure?” Finn asked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Poe grabbed Finn’s hip to begin guiding him forward. “You won’t hurt me.”

Finn looked skeptical, although of what, Poe wasn’t entirely certain. But then pure, raw pleasure wiped the skepticism away and Poe had to close his eyes as Finn began to push inside. A wrecked, pleased sound tore itself from Poe’s throat as Finn pressed all the way inside him. Poe took a few breaths and then began to move, earning himself a shaky moan from Finn’s lips.

The younger man caught on quickly, though, and they found a rhythm within a few thrusts. And not long after that, Finn discovered the right angle to send starbursts of pleasure through Poe’s body. He barely remembered to stifle his cry.

Finn was whispering words in his ear that Poe barely even heard. “…Okay. I’ve got you, Poe. You’re safe.”

Poe shuddered; whatever he may have said in response interrupted by a broken moan when Finn reached between them to begin stroking him. He wrapped an arm around Finn’s back, skimming his fingers over the scar on Finn’s spine, pulling him closer and deeper. The change in angle sent more heat low to his stomach.

“Finn, I—“

“Touch yourself.”

Poe hissed out a breath at the timbre of Finn’s voice, but obeyed. Once he’d wrapped his hand around his cock, Finn raised himself on both arms and snapped his hips forward hard enough that Poe did cry out. Finn took the sound for the encouragement it was and repeated the movement. Poe swore. Or he thought he did. He wasn’t sure. His mind was lost in heat and want and _Finn Finn Finn_.

It wasn’t long after that when the heat that had been coiling in Poe’s stomach washed over him and he buried his face against the side of Finn’s throat to muffle his moan when he came. A heartbeat later, Finn followed him with a ragged sound.

Poe ran his hand down Finn’s arm, feeling him tremble beneath his fingers. Reluctantly, Finn withdrew, leaning up to kiss Poe’s cheek. Poe cupped his cheek and held him close for a moment, letting Finn’s body heat warm the ice in Poe’s chest.

“I should get up,” Poe murmured at last, once the sweat and semen on his skin had begun to dry.

“No, stay here. I’ll grab a towel.”

Poe let him go, unwilling to disrupt the lethargy that had begun to suffuse his bones. He was dozing when Finn came back and ran a damp, warm cloth across his skin. He was alone for a moment, then the bed shifted and Finn wrapped his arm around Poe’s stomach, pulling him in close and draping the blanket over his shoulders.

“Sleep now, Poe.”

 

His dreams were still dark and any sounds in the hall shocked him awake, but every time he woke, Finn ran a hand down his chest or arm or hip and kissed the back of his neck, soothing him back to sleep. It was nearly sunup when he truly woke. The bed beside him was still warm, but empty.

A warm hand on his jaw had woken him. “I’ve got to go; the general needs me. I could be gone for a few days, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Still more asleep than awake, Poe reached for him and caught his hand. “A few days?”

“Mmhm.” The bed dipped and Finn’s arm wrapped around Poe’s stomach. He kissed the back of Poe’s neck, sending pleasant shivers through him. Finn’s lips curved into a smile against his skin. “At most. I’ll try to be back sooner.”

Poe nodded and drifted back to sleep, although a quiet part of him wanted to keep pushing for answers. He knew better, though. Any sleep was better than no sleep.

Less than an hour later he startled awake, batting at the burnt white-black hands that grabbed for him, only to find that he was alone. BB-8 blipped at him, tilting his head to peer curiously up over the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine, Beebee. It was just a dream.”

His droid trilled something vaguely insulting and Poe tossed a pillow at him. The droid rolled out of the way, and Poe gathered up his clothes and made his way to the sanisteam. The previous night’s sleep, more than he’d gotten the two nights earlier, despite everything, had given him enough strength to carry him through the process of showering and getting ready for the day. He even managed to make the bed to something resembling proper straightness, but he still dropped heavily to it once he was done, his hair dripping cold water onto his sheets.

BB-8 whistled, turning toward the door just before it chimed. Poe ran his hands through his hair then stood and called for the person to enter. The door opened and a massive, red-skinned Twi’lek ducked his head to get through.

He wore a strange mixture of Resistance and native Twi’lek clothing, but nobody would have dared look twice at him, except possibly to gape at his impossible size. Tal’dira grinned at Poe once he’d cleared the doorway.

“You’re up.”

“I didn’t expect you to be on planet.”

Tal’dira shrugged, spreading his hands. “I wasn’t going to leave the pilots under Snap’s control while you were out of commission. Sit. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Poe had been wavering on his feet. He’d been hoping Tal’dira hadn’t noticed, but he should have known better than to try to fool him. He settled back on the bed and Tal’dira took a seat in the chair across from him, filling the space entirely. He stretched out his legs and narrowed his dark eyes.

“You look like—“ He said a word Poe didn’t recognize. When Poe failed to make the appropriate reaction, Tal’dira sighed. “Shit. You look like shit.”

“Not all of us can have menacing red skin and be a solid two meters in height.”

“At least you’ve got your sense of humor back. To hear Snap tell it, you’ve been a tiny ball of delight the last few months.”

Poe snorted at the dig at his height so suddenly that BB-8 blipped in alarm. “It’s good to have you back with us.”

“I should have been there with you all at Starkiller. I was held up on Ryloth for too long.”

“Your mission was important. General Organa wouldn’t have sent you if she hadn’t thought you were the one who needed to be there.” Tal’dira nodded his head in acceptance. “How are the Twi’lek there?”

“They’re mourning. We lost a lot of our people when Starkiller destroyed the Hosnian system. But they’re prepared to offer the Resistance whatever help they need, including bacta. We should have a shipment coming within the next few weeks.”

“Bacta? Really?”

Tal’dira stretched out his shoulders and nodded. “It isn’t coming for free, but it is a lot less expensive than what Ryloth would have sold it for to anyone else. They know they’re declaring for the Resistance at the expense of the First Order. They need all the help they can get now.” Tal’dira frowned briefly. Then said, “When will we see you out in the fields? The pilots are getting antsy. Not many of them have been allowed in to see you, and with Finn gone—“

“Do you know where?”

“I would have thought if he’d told anyone, it would be you. The general has him scouting new bases. Agamar. She doesn’t want us caught flat-footed the way we were on D’Qar.”

“What is Finn doing scouting? He can’t fly a kite.”

The Twi’lek threw his head back and laughed, a deep, booming sound. Once he’d gotten himself under control, he said, “She sends us to do the initial scouting. If a location looks promising, she sends Finn and his people to do some planetary recon. We’ve found three possible locations in the last week. He’ll be gone two days at most on this run.”

_His_ people? Poe frowned. Finn hadn’t told him any of this, and definitely not that he had people that were _his_. Poe pushed that away. “Snap told me you helped him save some of the kids.”

“We did the best we could. The ones we couldn’t save earned their deaths. You would have been proud of them.”

Poe wasn’t sure he would ever understand the way Tal’dira talked about death. Pilots knew their lifespans were short, but Tal’dira seemed almost cheered by that knowledge. Well, the warriors were unique among the Twi’lek, and Tal’dira was unusual, even for them.

“When will the doctor let you go?”

Poe avoided looking at the mirror near the door. He’d seen his reflection this morning and wished he hadn’t. His cheeks were hollow, his skin sallow. He had black circles beneath his eyes, dark enough to look bruised. He’d never spent a lot of time examining his eyes, but they looked listless and blank, even to him.

“I’m not sure. Soon, I hope.”

Tal’dira looked him over, then nodded. He stood up, seeming to unfold bits of him that had been crammed into the chair and growing even broader. Poe would never, ever understand how that man fit into an X-wing. “Stay here.” He was gone before Poe could ask him exactly where he thought Poe would go.

“I made a mistake last night, Beebee.” His droid beeped in confusion. “No, no, it was… it was good. But I shouldn’t have done it.” BB-8 didn’t understand, and Poe wasn’t sure he understood himself. “I might have just messed up something really important.”

The little droid rocked back and forth for a moment, then up to Poe’s feet. He nudged Poe gently and offered him a reassuring beep. It would be okay. Poe reached down and patted his head.

“Thanks, bud.”

It really didn’t make him feel a lot better about what he’d done. He should have stopped it. He’d wanted Finn. Suns and stars, he’d wanted Finn. And Finn had obviously wanted him. But this was wrong—so wrong. It wasn’t that Finn was innocent, at least not really, but… but it had been wrong. If this was going to be how Poe planned to sleep, he couldn’t get Finn wrapped up in it. It wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Well, Poe had at least one night to figure out what to do about it all. He wasn’t sure that was long enough.

BB-8 whistled a warning a moment before the door opened. Dr. Kalonia stepped in, gesturing to someone—Poe thought it must have been Tal’dira—to stay out of the room, then the door closed again. She carried a datapad in one hand that she thrust at Poe’s chest. He flinched, but caught it.

The thunderheads on Kalonia’s face faded slightly, but not enough to transform the expression to anything but annoyance. “Read it.”

It was a calendar with days marked in red and orange. Here or there a day was green, or greenish, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of the information. Obviously it had something to do with him. The first day, bright red, was the first day he’d been awake. Curious, he tapped yesterday’s date. Another screen popped up, but it was empty.

Dr. Kalonia could see the screen from the angle he was holding it. “That’s what you ate yesterday.”

“There’s nothing there.”

“Exactly. You didn’t eat _anything_ yesterday, Poe.” She reached over and tapped the day before, still red. Three different kinds of food with weights in grams appeared in a list.

“What do the colors mean?”

“Green is an appropriate food intake for a man of your age and size. Orange is the bare minimum required to sustain you. Red is not.”

Poe shifted uncomfortably on the bed, letting his fingers run across the datapad. Day after day of red and orange. “I’m not—“

“I know you’re ‘not.’ But your pilot has requested your release and is taking up space and frightening my staff. I’m showing you why I want to keep you here. This _will_ kill you, Poe. We’re not in hypotheticals anymore. If you don’t starve, then you’re going to get lightheaded while climbing on an X-wing or going down some stairs or standing on a balcony and you’ll fall and crack your skull open. And then I’m going to have to tell your father he needs to bury his son. I’ve told enough fathers their children are dead. I’m not going to do it for you.”

“I’ll—“ Poe nearly said he would be fine, but thought again. “I’ll do better. I’ll eat.”

Dr. Kalonia’s lips tightened. “Beebee-ate.”

BB-8 twisted his head to look up at her.

“If Poe doesn’t consume three adequate meals a day, you come straight to me and tell me, are we clear?” BB-8 looked at Poe and when Poe nodded, he gave a quiet chirp of acknowledgement. Kalonia looked Poe over one more time. “If I find out he’s keeping information from me, I’m taking him from you and confining you to the infirmary until I’m satisfied you’re healthy. I’ll be comparing his information with that from the droids in the cafeteria. Are we clear?”

Poe knew her well enough to know that wasn’t an idle threat. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kalonia opened the door. “Tal’dira, he’s all yours.”

The Twi’lek stuck his head through the doorway and grinned. “Let’s go, Poe. I’ll show you to your room. Black, red, and blue squadrons should be ready to eat by then.”

A glance to the side showed Dr. Kalonia with her arms crossed over her chest, a grim smile on her face. Well, she wanted him to eat. Poe held out the datapad, but she shook her head.

“Keep it. It’s updated daily. I’ll have any of your effects sent to your room.”

Poe grimaced, but followed Tal’dira out the door, BB-8 rolling at his heels. He’d forgotten how _tall_ the damned Twi’lek was, and he nearly had to trot to keep up. After about half a hallway, Tal’dira looked down at him and slowed. The brash attitude that Poe was used to seeing on his subordinate faded, and he suddenly looked concerned. Poe hadn’t even realized he was out of breath until just then. Tal’dira continued at a much slower pace, somehow without seeming to be slowing for Poe’s sake.

Finally, Tal’dira stopped at a door at the end of a long hallway. “This is you. The pilots barracks are that door there,” he pointed to the door they’d walked past, midway down the corridor. “There’s a bed for you there if you ever want it. I’ll give you some time to get settled, and then—Do you want to go to the mess with us? We’re all here but Stiletto. If it’s too much, they’ll understand.”

Poe wanted to curl up on his new bed and pull the blankets over his head and refuse to see anyone until he felt warm again. “Yeah, it’s fine. Come on by whenever everyone’s ready?”

Tal’dira settled his hand on Poe’s shoulder, an uncommonly affectionate move for him, and then retreated, leaving Poe alone with his door. Poe passed his hand over the biometric scanner and the door hissed open. BB-8 skimmed past him into the room, chattering happily. Poe managed a wan smile in return and stepped inside. The door shut behind him with a rattle—clearly this base was old—and he flinched at the noise, his heart pounding heavily in his chest.

He was going to need to fix that.

Poe gazed around his room. Bed, footlocker, closet with his clothes already hung up inside, desk, mirror.

“Beebee-ate?” His droid beeped that he was listening. “Have you seen my father?”

A rapid-fire run of binary that condensed to “No.” Poe sat back on his bed and held his head in his hands. He had to deal with Finn—not with Finn, specifically, but what the was going to do about all of this—and with his father. He understood why his father was upset. Kes, unable to stop Shara’s death, had been left with a son determined to follow in her footsteps. Poe couldn’t imagine going from a husband to a widower in a heartbeat, and somehow still having to be a father to a young son. He’d been as ungrateful then as he’d acted now.

“Could you find out if he’s still on planet? You don’t need to find him, just… find out if he’s still here?”

BB-8 whistled quietly and headed for the door. It hissed open and rattled shut again, making the hair on the back of Poe’s neck stand on end. Poe swore quietly and moved to the door, kneeling beside the controls.

He failed to find the problem on the controls on the inside of his room and moved to the hallway. That was where Tal’dira found him half an hour later, grease on his fingertips and a frown of concentration on his forehead.

“We have droids for that, you know.”

It was impossible to miss Tal’dira’s approach, for all that he was remarkably stealthy. Red skin just didn’t blend in in the bland gray Rebellion bases. Poe straightened, grimacing at the stretch in his knee.

“It gave me something to do. Is everyone ready?”

“They’re all headed to the mess. Fair warning, they’re pretty excited to see you.”

Poe managed an honest smile at that, gesturing for Tal’dira to lead the way. He’d missed his pilots. They were loud and excitable the way those with prescribed short lives always were. But they were his pilots, the closest thing to an extended family he would ever have.

Poe felt as though he’d forgotten what _loud_ meant when the mess erupted into voices as soon as he’d stepped through. He’d been prepared for this, though, and he managed to keep steady, even as three squadrons worth of active pilots, techs, and trainees shouted at once.

The rest of the people in the room clearly hadn’t been prepared, judging by the sudden clatter of dropped cutlery.

There were faces missing, children barely old enough to have been pilots, but his original Black Squadron was there, everyone but Karé Kun, leading Stiletto Squadron wherever they were. Hands touched him as he passed, catching his shoulders or forearms. Tal’dira led him to a seat between Jessika and Snap, then took his own seat further down the table.

The rest of his pilots loaded plates of food—and one for Poe—and settled into a brief silence.

“When will you be flying with us again?” a young pilot asked. Gavin Darklighter smacked him on the arm.

“Leave him be,” Gavin snapped.

“It’s okay, Gavin. As soon as Dr. Kalonia and General Organa give me the green light, I’ll be up in the air with you all again.”

That seemed to be what everyone had been waiting to hear, and conversation started again. With so many eyes on him, even if they flicked to L’ulo when he spoke, then to Jessika, then further down the table and back up again, Poe forced himself to eat. He managed to keep from tasting almost anything, although the bread on his plate remained untouched, by focusing entirely on the conversation flowing around him.

He’d nearly finished everything on his plate, more than he’d eaten in days, when a voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Attention, Black, Red, and Blue Squadrons. Report to your fighters. Orders will follow when you’re on your way to Agamar.” There was a pause, and then the announcement began again. “Attention, Black, Red, and Blue Squadrons. Report to your fighters. Orders will follow when you’re on your way to Agamar.”

The mess erupted into noise again, chairs screeching backward, feet pounding toward the door. Snap stopped long enough to catch Poe by the shoulder.

“He’ll be fine, Poe. Whatever’s going on, Finn will be fine. We’ll make sure of it.”

And then he was gone.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm really unhappy with this chapter, but I owe you all something, so here you go! We're almost done now.
> 
> In which things (start to) turn around for our boys.

Poe could hear the whispers following the pilots’ exit. He knew what they were really whispering about—Black Leader, Commander of the pilots under General Organa, had been left behind. Poe stood, leaving the rest of his food untouched. What he had eaten sat heavily in his stomach, threatening to make him sick. Stars, it had hurt so much more than he’d thought to see his pilots called out on an emergency flight while he was still grounded for the foreseeable future. Possibly forever.

A droid rolled up behind him, tutting at the mess the pilots had left behind, and began cleaning up the plates. Poe watched for a moment, steadying himself, then headed for the door. BB-8 found him shortly after he stepped into the hallway. Kes was still on planet and making no moves to leave. Well, that was one thing.

“Where’s ops?”

BB-8 let out a curious warble, but spun around to begin leading Poe through the hallways toward a growing bustle of noise. The double doors at the end of the hallway were closed, but the sound of ops was familiar enough for him to recognize even in this new base. He pushed the door open and slipped inside.

Despite his mediocre attempt at stealth, a ripple of silence passed through the technicians at his entrance, eventually reaching General Organa at the front of the room. She lifted her gaze from the display she’d been studying, searching for the source of the disturbance. She sighed when she saw Poe, but gestured for him to come forward. Conversation in ops didn’t begin again until he reached her side, and even then it was hushed.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” General Organa said, looking him up and down, as though judging his worth to be standing there. Or maybe the possibility that he would collapse on the ground in front of her.

“I was with the pilots when they got the call. I know Finn and Karé Kun are out there. I just…” He shrugged helplessly and General Organa gave him a gentle smile. She raised a hand and gestured toward some of the nearby technicians.

“Take a seat, Dameron.”

“I don’t need to sit, General.”

General Organa waited until a young woman with blond hair in buns set down a chair and backed away. “If you’re going to be helping us, I’m not having you wander away midway through because your feet get tired.” Poe sat. “Third channel, please.”

He keyed his way through the display until he pulled up the correct channel. Coded communiques appeared in row after row, organized only by date received. He tapped the first record and watched the text scroll across the screen. Poe keyed in his ID to activate the translation program.

“Stiletto Squadron spotted TIE fighters near the Mirgoshir system,” General Organa said. She’d turned back to her display, sending the image of a planet spinning while she watched it. “Karé Kun said she would be in contact if they engaged, but she’s been radio silent since she called for backup. Everyone on Agamar was safe as of our last conversation, and Stiletto is staying out of sight.”

A weight lifted from Poe’s chest. Short of his own squadron, there was nobody he trusted with Finn’s life more than Karé Kun and Stiletto. If she’d seen the TIE fighters, there was almost no chance they’d seen her first, not if they hadn’t already engaged. No calls would have gone out for reinforcements on the First Order’s end.

“They’re going to take the long way home,” Admiral Statura said, without lifting his eyes from the display he was examining. “Go ahead and take that to Tarel’s people. See what they can do with it.” An aide took the datapad from him and scampered away. Another aide stepped up to take her place. “But they should be here within the next day, depending how many jumps Karé Kun takes them on.”

As far as Statura was concerned that was enough information, and General Organa’s attention had been drawn aside to discussion of evacuation plans when it became necessary.

It was easy to lose track of time in ops. All Poe had to do was decode a message and send it to its appropriate destination, then pick another message from the list, decode that, and send it along. The hubbub of the room around him faded into a comfortable noise, interrupted only by the occasional blip of warning from BB-8 whenever someone was about to walk behind him or if an aide approached. Eventually BB-8 bumped his leg and whistled quietly just a second or so before a hand settled on Poe’s shoulder. He turned to see who it was.

“Hungry?” Kes asked.

Poe nearly refused on reflex, but something in his father’s face—and his own lingering guilt—had him pushing back from the display. His knee ached when he stood. “How long’ve I been here?”

“Four hours,” General Organa said. “Go get some food with your father. Get some rest if you can. If you feel up to it, we’ll need you here for the next few days. The move to Dantooine threw us off, and our techs are swamped.”

Poe saluted her, then nodded to his father. “Yeah, let’s go.”

There was a fragile hope on Kes’s face that made Poe a little bit sick to his stomach as he began to lead the way to the cafeteria. Poe didn’t deserve that look. He wasn’t hungry. He wanted nothing to do with food, but this—going to eat with his father—was his way to keep Kalonia from making good on her promise. If he didn’t at least reach that orange level of sufficient nutrition, she would haul him back to the hospital wing until she was satisfied. It was a different kind of prison than the one he’d just left, but still a prison, and that thought made him sicker than the idea of eating.

Poe reached out to stop his father just before they entered the cafeteria. “Dad?”

“Yeah, kiddo?” Kes asked, turning to face him.

Poe had somehow missed that his father had aged. In his memory, Kes was still the same age he had been when he’d hugged Poe goodbye on Yavin 4, telling him how proud Shara would have been of him, long before Poe had realized how incompetent the Republic was. Kes’s hair was graying now, and he had more wrinkles than Poe remembered. For a moment he tried to picture his mother beside Kes, but Shara’s face was blurred in his memory.

“I’m sorry,” Poe said.

“For what?”

Poe gestured to himself. “For this. For the way I’ve been. You don’t deserve—“

Kes cut him off with a tight hug. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“But—“

Kes let go of Poe and took a step back, far enough to look Poe up and down. “You’re alive. You never need to apologize for surviving or for coping however you need to cope, as long as in the end I get my son back. Missions like that change you. They’ll bleed you dry if you don’t find some way to stay alive. Shara and I flew them more often than I like to remember. Don’t you dare apologize for still being alive, no matter what you had to do to do it.”

Kes didn’t give him a chance to respond. He pushed open the door to the cafeteria and led the way in, heading toward the food off to one side. Poe found a weak grain-based soup with some sort of protein mixed in. A meat of some kind, he thought, eyeing the lumps suspended in the liquid. BB-8 blipped that he was updating Poe’s dietary intake for the day, sounding rather pleased with himself.

Between eating with the pilots this afternoon and his father now, Poe had to have been at least in the orange. Stars, he hoped so. He didn’t think he could stomach anything more.

They easily spent more than an hour in the cafeteria, with Poe gradually picking his way through the soup. Eventually Poe managed to empty his bowl, and then filch a few pieces of fruit native to Yavin 4 off his father’s plate. Kes slapped at Poe’s fingers but mostly missed. The reaction was purposefully delated, far too slow for a former fighter pilot. Poe appreciated the thought and the attempt to normalize their interaction.

Finally, though, Kes yawned, and Poe realized how late it had gotten. “Go get some sleep, Dad.”

“I’ll stay up with you if you want me to.”

Poe waved his hand, dismissing the thought. “Go to bed. I’ll try to get some sleep myself.”

It was unlikely, but Kes nodded, willing to play along this time. Now that Poe had gotten some food in him, Kes seemed less worried. While Poe wouldn’t say he felt _better_ exactly, he did feel steadier. His hands didn’t shake quite so much, and he felt almost balanced. Kes bade Poe goodnight and left, but Poe wasn’t alone at the table for long.

“How is he?” General Organa asked, taking the seat Kes had vacated.

“Worried about me.”

“As a mother, I can sympathize. You put on a good show, I suppose?”

Poe grimaced at her. “I’m trying, General.”

Just as she had in the hospital room, she reached for him and then let her hand drop to her side. “I know you are. And we all appreciate how hard you’re working.”

“General, are you okay? You seem… tired.”

She seemed so many more things than tired. She seemed exhausted. She seemed as close to broken as Poe had ever seen her, as though the loss of her husband weighed on her more and more each day. Poe couldn’t understand. The grief he could, of course, but Han hadn’t been around for most of Poe’s time with the Resistance. He hadn’t provided a support the general had lost.

This time General Organa did reach for him, resting her hand on the back of his wrist. Her fingers were cold on his skin. “I appreciate your concern, Poe, truly, but it’s not my place to weigh you down with my troubles. I need you focused on your own health and what the Resistance needs, not what I need.”

“The Resistance needs you, General.”

She smiled and gave his wrist a gentle squeeze, then pulled back, folding her hands beneath the table. “You are your mother’s son. No, I’m okay. I’ve lost a great deal in my life, but there will always be more to lose. That is the secret to surviving our kind of life, Poe. Know that the Empire or the First Order cannot take it all from you. There is always more to lose, which means there is always more to protect.” General Organa seemed to pause to gather herself, then she pushed back from the table and stood. “Try to sleep tonight.”

Poe smiled until the cafeteria door closed behind her. He let the smile drop and pushed himself to his feet, starting toward the front doors. Unlike ops, the exits of the building were clearly marked. An image of an X-wing in flight, he assumed, would lead him toward the landing field.

Dantooine was so much quieter than D’Qar had been. He wasn’t sure if the base was larger, if more people were still working at this hour, or if fewer people were on planet. It didn’t much matter in the end, just that he made it all the way to the landing field without seeing more than shadows of the few pilots that remained on the planet. He passed nobody in the halls.

He settled at the base of a tree near the edge of the field and leaned back against it. BB-8 seemed to sense Poe’s mood, so he stayed quiet at Poe’s side. It was early fall on this part of the planet, and a cold wind was picking up. Poe hunched his shoulders and wished he’d thought to grab a jacket, although, now that he was thinking of it, he hadn’t seen his jacket since D’Qar. He wrapped his arms around himself and huddled closer to the tree. As long as there was no wind, the temperature was cool but still comfortable. He tilted his head up to watch the stars through the canopy above him.

It was almost like he was back on Yavin 4 with the quiet rustle of the Force sensitive tree form his backyard. Chillier than Yavin 4 was most of the time, but peaceful. Maybe, if they’d hurt the First Order as much as they hoped they had, he could go back home for a while. Spend some time with his father. Visit his mother’s and grandfather’s graves. Learn how to breathe again without that icy knot tightening around his lungs and cutting off his air.

Except they’d been fighting this war since General Organa was a child. She’d learned this fight at her father’s knee, and she didn’t seem certain they’d won. Poe scrubbed his hands through his hair. He was tired. More tired than a sleepless night or two should have left him. It was a deep weariness that for the first time in his life made him wonder if he was still any use in this fight. His pilots… he called them his, but were they? Were they more Snap’s or Jessika’s or even Tal’dira’s?

There had been a time when losing his pilots like this—not to death or retirement at an old age, but to another more capable commander—was among the worst things he could imagine. Obviously his imagination was much more vivid now, and loyalty to an absent commander was fleeting, even among the best intentioned of pilots.

He sighed, ready to let his head drop back against the tree again when he saw a formation of lights too rigidly aligned to be stars. Poe stood, pointing up when BB-8 blipped curiously. The droid warbled excitedly once he realized what Poe was looking at. Four full squadrons of X-wings and a small troop transport.

Poe stood to watch the ships come in for their landing. The troop transport disgorged a half dozen people Poe barely recognized—stars, how out of it had he been, even in the months before his capture, to not recognize so many people?—before Finn stepped out. He was deep in conversation with a woman at his side, but he looked up when BB-8 beeped a greeting.

“Hey—Poe?” Finn broke into a jog, catching Poe by the shoulders when he reached him. “What are you doing? Why are you outside so late at night?” He enfolded Poe in his arms. “You’re freezing. How long have you been waiting?”

“I wasn’t waiting. I just…” Poe shrugged, burrowing deeper into Finn’s arms. “I just wasn’t tired.”

“Liar,” Finn said, but his voice sounded fond. He held Poe for another moment before letting him go. He pulled off his jacket—Poe’s jacket, so that’s where it had been—and slung it over Poe’s shoulders. It was warm, and Poe wrapped himself in it. “I’ve got to go give my report, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Where will you be?”

Poe considered the line of his pilots… the line of pilots… on their way inside. Karé Kun loomed large over them as she ushered them along. His room was too close to the barracks and too close to any celebrations they might have. He couldn’t bear that.

“Here, I guess.”

Finn shook his head. “Beebee, can you take him to my room? You know where it is, right?”

BB-8 beeped an affirmative and began leading Poe toward a side door in the base. Finn continued toward the main door with the woman he’d walked out of the transport with. BB-8 led him through a maze of corridors to a lone door at the far end of a hallway. Poe recognized the layout—his own room on bases where the pilots had a wing rather than a barracks had looked like this. Whatever Finn hadn’t told him about his new position within the Resistance, it was obvious he’d come far.

BB-8 opened the door and rolled inside, turning to look back at Poe as he stepped inside. The interior was as sparse had Finn’s room had been on D’Qar, and just as small as any room Poe had ever slept in on Resistance bases. Apparently the Resistance had taken its cue from the Rebellion on architecture.

“Why don’t you go back to my room and charge for the night?” Poe suggested. BB-8 headed straight to a charging station in the corner of Finn’s room. Poe rolled his eyes, but let him be.

Poe didn’t have to wait long for the door to open again. Finn crossed the two steps to him and swept Poe into his arms.

“I missed you,” Finn murmured against Poe’s neck.

Poe slipped his arms around Finn’s waist. “You were hardly gone a day.”

Finn hummed, then kissed him. Poe made a quiet sound in his throat, then pulled Finn in tighter. He was so solid and warm beneath Poe’s hands. It was intoxicating. Beyond intoxicating, even, because Finn was safety and strength and Poe hardly knew what that meant anymore.

It was Finn, finally, who stepped back enough to break their kiss. “Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you…” Finn hesitated, lips twisting. “Do you remember what I said when you kissed me?”

Poe thought for a moment, unsure where this was going. “You said this was new to you. That you hadn’t done any of this before.”

Finn took a deep breath, his hands fiddling with his sleeves. “I’ve been talking to Rey. Well, I’ve been talking _at_ Rey. She mostly just laughs at me. But I’ve been talking to her and she thinks I should just tell you and we can figure out where to go from there.”

He fell silent like he expected Poe to know what he was saying. Poe shrugged, running a hand over the leather sleeve of his jacket. “I’m not sure what you’re—“

“I love you.”

Poe stared at Finn for a second, his mouth open. “I… _what_?”

“I think I do, anyway. I don’t… I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, but it sounds right. I love you.”

The past few months hadn’t been kind to Poe. He’d grown accustomed to the sensation of the ground dropping away from beneath his feet. What he felt now was similar. Something that sent him into a tailspin and everything that was supposed to be in one place was suddenly in another. And every question he’d had, everything he’d wanted to ask, _did you have sex with me so I could sleep?, why are you spending your nights with me when you could spend them somewhere else?, why have you been the first person I see when I wake up?_ suddenly fell into place.

“Poe? Could you… say something? I mean, it’s okay if you don’t—“

Poe threw his arms around Finn’s shoulders and pressed his face against Finn’s neck. Finn laughed quietly, returning the embrace.

“Yeah?” Finn asked.

Poe nodded. “I hadn’t thought about it.” And he hadn’t, which was the stupidest part. He’d been so fixated on the cold lump in his chest, the ache in his skull, his knee, the shudders down his spine when a droid hummed awake behind him. It hadn’t occurred to him that the reason the ice warmed or the shudders stopped was because he had fallen in love so quickly that he hadn’t even registered the change.

“You’ve been busy,” Finn offered and Poe laughed, stepping back to look at him.

He ran his knuckles over Finn’s cheek. “I do love you,” Poe promised. “Just… are you sure you want this? There are a dozen people on this base alone who would be better choices than I am. Pilots die young, Finn, and I…” Poe broke off. “I don’t even know if I’m going to fly again. There’s no place for me here if I can’t fly.”

Finn shrugged as if it was the easiest decision in the galaxy. “Then we go. You’ll fly again; I know you will. But if you can’t, then we can go. We can head back to Yavin 4 or out to the Rim. Anywhere you want to go.”

“What about your people here? Or Rey?”

“It’s not like I won’t ever be able to speak to Rey again. And they’ll be able to find another person to lead them. Leia put me in charge because I was the closest qualified person when she needed someone. There are a lot of people who can tell people to take atmospheric readings and not to wander off.”

Poe laughed, and Finn smiled one of his rare, brilliant, blinding smiles.

“But we don’t need to get ahead of ourselves,” Finn said. “You’ve barely been on your feet. You can take time to heal and see if you want to fly… What’s the name of your ship now?”

“ _Black Two_ , I suppose. I hadn’t—“

“Thought about it?” Finn guessed. He put both of his hands on Poe’s shoulders. “Maybe it’s time you do. Start thinking about it.”

Poe didn’t think he meant thinking about what to name his ship. But Finn didn’t push it, beginning instead to pull the jacket from Poe’s shoulders.

“It’s late. Let’s get some sleep.” He dropped the jacket on top of the desk. “Do you want to…?”

“We don’t need to. Besides, I need to figure out how to sleep without having sex first.”

Finn looked like he was about to make some sort of comment, so Poe kissed him to stop him.

They took their time getting undressed. Finn unbuttoned Poe’s shirt and pushed it from his shoulders, pressing his palms to the tiny starburst scars on his chest. Poe pulled Finn’s shirt over his head, kissing the scar on the front of his shoulder.

“What’s it from?”

“I don’t remember, honestly. Training, probably. The only scar I have that didn’t come from training is the one on my back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“The Resistance should have stopped this. We should have been able to stop the First Order before they stole children from their families and brainwashed them.”

Finn kissed Poe’s temple. “You couldn’t have stopped them. One day we will. We’ll stop the First Order and put an end to all of this, but not right now.”

They finished getting ready in silence. Poe burrowed into Finn’s arms when they slid into bed, pressing his forehead against Finn’s sternum.

“We’ll get you through this,” Finn said. “Whatever we have to do, we’ll get you through this and figure out what we have to do next, okay?”

 

He managed four hours of uninterrupted sleep that night before his mind formed Ami’s charred face. _Rebel scum_ and _you know how this goes_ and _why did you leave me_ and _how could you—_

“Hey. Hey, Poe, it’s me. C’mon, love, wake up.”

Poe jerked awake, drenched in a cold sweat. He stumbled from the bed, grabbing at the corner of the desk to keep his balance. Finn rose slowly from the bed, his hands outstretched.

“You awake?”

Poe pressed his hand against his chest to calm his pounding heart and nodded. Finn approached him cautiously, his hand still held out for Poe to take.

“It’s okay. Come here. It’s okay.” Poe went and Finn tucked him against his body. “I’ve got you.”

Finn eased Poe back toward the bed and then back down on it. He soothed Poe back to sleep with his hands on Poe’s back and gentle kisses. Poe woke up three more times that night, but each time Finn was there to tether him to a reality where he wasn’t strapped to a chair or locked in a tiny, dark room.

Poe gave up at sunrise, leaving a still-sleeping Finn behind. He dressed as quietly as he could and retraced his steps to get back outside. A few bleary-eyed pilots were at their X-wings, but the rest of the base seemed quiet.

He’d barely found a hidden, out-of-the-way corner before Rey settled down at his side.

“You’re up early,” she said.

“So’re you.”

“Master Skywalker is trying to teach me to need less sleep.” She yawned, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. “It’s not working very well. Apparently Jedi are supposed to be able to function for a long time on almost no sleep.”

Poe sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “That’d be a nice trick.”

“If I can figure it out, I’ll tell you.” Rey looked sideways at him. “Where’s Finn?”

“Still sleeping. I figured one of us might as well be able to.”

“Did you manage any at all last night?”

“Four or five hours all told, I think.” Poe shrugged, leaning back on his hands. “It’s better than it has been.”

Rey reached out to put her arm around him, and Poe didn’t shrug her off. He refused to lean into her warmth, but he didn’t move away.

“You really do look better,” she offered. “Last time I saw you—I mean, last time I saw you conscious—I was afraid we were still going to lose you. But you look better.”

Poe shrugged, uncomfortable with her concern. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, you will. Listen, I know Master Skywalker would want to see you. Do you want to get breakfast with us? Cilghal will be there too, and she probably wants to see how your healing’s holding up.”

He wanted to refuse, but Rey was beaming at him and so he sighed, stood up, and held his hand out to her to haul her to her feet. “Let’s go.”


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Poe deals with Shara and Luke begins to take things into his own hands.
> 
> And Snap's just exasperated.

Cilghal and Luke were seated in the center of a large room when Rey led Poe to them. The room was nearly empty, although it had obviously been serving as a place for Luke and Rey to sleep and probably to train. He could see two bedrolls set against a far wall and two small packs next to that. A low table sat in the other far corner with covered containers and plates.

The two Force-users had their eyes closed and they were breathing slowly, steadily. As Poe watched, they rose slowly from the ground until they hovered a few handspans above the ground. Rey let out a quiet breath beside him.

“I haven’t managed that yet, but Master Skywalker promises me I’ll be able to one day. He’s only been practicing with Cilghal since he brought her here to help you.”

“I thought she wasn’t a Jedi.”

“She’s not. She can use the Force, but she’s never had any training. It wasn’t safe, first of all, and there was nobody to teach her. But there is now. I hope… With things the way they are, we need more healers.”

First Luke and then Cilghal settled slowly to the ground. “Very good,” Luke said, standing up and holding out a hand to help Cilghal to her feet. “You’ve come far since we first started.”

“Master Skywalker?” Rey called. “I brought Poe.”

“Come join us,” Luke said, finally turning to face them. “You have good timing.”

They settled at low table in the corner with Luke at one end and Cilghal at the other. Rey and Poe each took a side between the two Force-users. The covered containers held a large spread of primarily fruits and some fish. The thought of fish for breakfast didn’t appeal much to Poe, nor, it appeared, to Rey. Cilghal and Luke dished up most of it. Luke held out one hand and a piece of yellow fruit floated to land gently in his palm. He smiled at Poe and spoke in a faux whisper.

“My Masters would be most disappointed in me if they knew I was using the Force to avoid asking Cilghal to pass the shuura.”

Poe laughed a little and helped himself to a fruit Rey pointed out to him. Mostly he sat in silence during breakfast, answering direct questions, but otherwise trying to figure out how much food he was supposed to eat to keep Kalonia happy. He decided to try for one bite for every two of Rey’s. She was chattering with Luke, asking him questions about his meditation with Cilghal, but still managing to eat steadily. Much of what they said didn’t make any sense anyway, and Poe felt safe enough pretending he was listening until plates began to empty.

“How is your knee?” Cilghal asked only moments after Poe tuned fully into the conversation. “Did the healing help?”

Poe rubbed absently at his knee. “It only aches after I’ve been sitting for a while.”

“May I?”

He nodded. Cilghal’s hand settled on his knee and Poe felt an unnerving coolness spreading through the joint. After a moment she withdrew her hand, fixing him with an intent look. The intensity of her gaze made Poe uncomfortable, but he forced himself to keep eye contact with her.

“Your knee is nearly healed. Another day at most and it should no longer bother you.”

“Thank you.”

Luke stood, straightening his robes as he did. “Rey, Cilghal has a few things to teach you about healing today. My own training in that field has been, I’m discovering, rather lacking. Poe, if you’ll stay with me.”

Uncertainly, Poe stood as well. Rey squeezed Poe’s shoulder as she walked past, pausing at the end of the table for Cilghal to gain her feet. Rey followed her silently toward the door with her hands folded behind her back. It was a change Poe hadn’t expected to see in her—she really was Luke’s student now, in a way she hadn’t been even when she’d first been part of the first rescue.

“Rey,” Luke called. She paused in the doorway and turned back to face him. “Find Finn, please, and let him know I’ve got Poe. I’ll return him in an hour.”

Rey grinned, a flash of the woman Poe knew, and nodded. “Yes, Master.”

Luke led Poe to where he’d been sitting with Cilghal and settled down cross-legged. He patted the floor next to him and Poe settled down, trying to copy his position. Crossed legs, straight back, hands resting on his knees.

“This is the first thing I teach all of my students,” Luke began, and then as if he sensed what Poe was about to protest, he added, “I know you can’t sense the Force. It’s a way for apprentices to begin to refine their control over the Force. I still think it will help you.”

Poe had grown up with the legends of this man, of what he and his parents and General Organa had accomplished. He wasn’t sure if there was a time in his life when he wouldn’t have trusted Luke Skywalker, but after the last few months, Poe would have walked into battle blindfolded if that’s what Luke had told him he needed to do.

“What do I have to do?”

“Close your eyes. I’m going to turn out the lights to help you focus. What’s wrong?”

Poe hadn’t thought he’d reacted to Luke’s plan to turn out the lights, but he must have, because the Jedi Master was watching him with bright, intent eyes. “Nothing. Go ahead.”

Luke frowned, his too-intelligent eyes fixed on Poe’s face. “Close your eyes.”

Reluctantly, Poe did. He could still see the lights through his eyelids, but he tensed, waiting for the absolute darkness of closed and locked rooms to surround him again, and… a hand rested on his wrist.

“Poe, do you trust me?” Poe nodded. “You trusted me to save you from _Suppression_ , didn’t you?” Poe nodded again. “Trust me now. I’m not going to let go of you until you’re ready. While I’m here, you’re safe.” Luke waited until Poe had drawn in a few steady breaths to speak again. “I’m going to turn out the lights now.”

Poe focused on breathing in and out while the darkness rushed toward his closed eyes. It was better than he’d expected, though, to have Luke’s hand on his arm. A steadying strength that he could draw on while his failed.

“What I’m going to teach you is a little bit different than what I teach my students, but it works the same way. We’re going to start with breathing. I’m going to count for you. Breathe in for a count of seven, hold for seven, breathe out for seven, hold for seven, and start again. One, two, three…”

Poe breathed. It wasn’t so different from what pilots were taught when they were first learning to fly. He listened to Luke’s voice and let his hand anchor him to the now, and gradually began relaxing. After a few cycles, Luke squeezed his wrist gently to get his attention.

“Keep breathing just like that. Now I want you to look inside yourself. Picture your inner self as a bright ball of light. Once you have that, I want you to picture all of your fear, your pain as blackness on top of that. Can you do that for me?”

At Poe’s nod, Luke began counting again, slow and steady. If his pain and fear were to be black on top of the “bright ball” of his light, Poe was sure it would all be black. And when the steady rhythm of Luke’s voice lulled Poe into relaxation, he found he was right. A ball of black a shade darker than the black around it.

“Now, with every exhale, you’ll be sending some of that darkness away. Breathe with the count.”

He did. In, hold, out, hold. For a long time, nothing seemed to change but that he got a cramp in his shoulder and his knee ached. Every time his mind wandered, Luke tapped a finger on his wrist, drawing him back to what he was supposed to be doing.

“Focus, Poe. You’re a pilot. If you can fly an X-wing in battle, you can do this.”

Poe let out an irritated breath and began to shift away from Luke. “Nothing is happening. It’s just… there. It’ll always just be there.”

“Poe Dameron.” This was the first time Poe had ever heard anything but kindness and concern from Luke and he flinched. Luke’s hand stayed steady on his wrist, despite the harsh tone. “If I thought there was no hope for you, I wouldn’t have brought Cilghal from Mon Cala to heal you. I wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to help you. I’m too old to waste my time on hopeless cases, Poe. I meant what I said. You still have a part to play. You’re not finished.”

“I want to be finished,” Poe whispered. He wanted to choke the words back, but it was too late. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut and waited for Luke to get up and walk away or… or whatever he was going to do.

Luke was silent for long enough that Poe was about to open his eyes and walk away on his own just to save himself the pain, but then Luke drew in a deep breath.

“I know.” Another long pause. “Let’s try again.”

Luke counted and Poe did his best to find that ball of blackness again. Finally, after an eternity, it swam back in front of his eyes. It seemed to be lighter somehow, a gray ball on a field of black. He breathed out when Luke counted and a wisp of black smoke floated away, leaving another gray area.

_In, two, three, four, five, six, seven._ Luke’s voice was more in his head than in his ears. _Hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Out, two, three…_ Another wisp of smoke floated away and Poe thought he could see color behind the gray… _five, six. Hold, two, three, four…_

Gold spots like the sun on the forest floor shone through the gray. Not many of them, but enough to help Poe breathe easier. He wanted to believe Luke. He wanted Luke to be right. He wanted to be of use to the Resistance again. A shadow passed across the ball and Poe choked on his grief. Luke’s fingers tightened on his wrist for no more than a heartbeat.

“That’s enough for today. Keep your eyes closed; I’m going to turn the lights back on.”

The light shining on his eyelids grew steadily brighter, then Luke said, “Go ahead. Open your eyes.”

Poe blinked at the brightness, but obeyed. Luke rubbed his hands together, then rested them on his knees. “You did well today, Poe. It may not feel that way right now, but you did very well.”

Poe could only nod. That final shadow had wiped away much of the hope that had been building up in him. This was going to be like every other thing since he’d first found himself on _Suppression_. Half a step forward and then two backward.

“I think my sister has Finn busy for the morning, but you’re free to go. Starting tomorrow, I would like you to come to me for an hour before you go to sleep.”

He didn’t give Poe any leeway to disagree, so Poe nodded silently, pressing his lips together. Luke gestured to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Poe climbed to his feet, murmured a quiet goodbye, and headed for the door. He was only a few steps out when he heard his father’s voice calling his name. Swallowing down the guilt from their last argument, Poe turned to face him.

“Are you doing anything?” Kes asked when he caught up.

“Not really, no. I was just…” Poe trailed off, trying to figure out what he was just going to do. “No.”

“Your mother and I were stationed on Dantooine briefly. I was going to take my freighter up and see if the planet had changed at all. Interested?”

Kes had to have known that all he had to do was entice Poe with the memory of his mother and Poe would come with him. A few minutes later, Poe found himself standing at the foot of the ramp leading onto an old, familiar Corellian freighter. The _Shara_ had sat, mostly unused, on Yavin 4 after his father got it a few years after Poe’s mother’s death. The name of the ship had been a point of contention between them, Kes’s desire to remember his wife and Poe’s pain at her loss. Eventually Poe had come around, once the sharp sting of loss had faded into old grief.

Kes took the pilot’s seat and Poe climbed in next to him. The freighter, a modified YT-1930, was as familiar to him as Yavin 4 and it made Poe’s chest ache a little. He’d never been homesick, certainly not in more recent years, but between his father, his uselessness, and now the _Shara_ , Poe began to wish he’d never left home. There would have been no Snap, Tal’dira, or Finn, but there would have been so much less pain.

Poe watched his father run through preflight checks and then the ship lifted off the forest floor. Kes piloted the ship up and into the highest levels of the atmosphere.

“Want to take over?”

It was so much like when Poe had first learned to fly that he reached out for the controls in front of him. But as soon as his fingertips touched the metal, his hands started to shake. He jerked his hands back onto his lap, hoping his father hadn’t noticed. Kes had, but he only began steering the ship toward one of the nearby wide expanses of blue. Massive white clouds curled into a giant circular storm along one of the coasts. On the ground, the storm would have been violent and deadly, but up here it was deceptively peaceful. Almost beautiful.

Kes took Poe on a tour of the planet for the next few hours, past a field of flowers so pink they could be seen from space, then to a mountain that the Rebellion had once wanted as their base, only to discover crystal caves filled with kath hounds. He brought Poe over the tumbled down ruins of an ancient Jedi temple.

It was late afternoon when Kes circled back around toward where they’d first seen the storm and toward a speck of blue Poe could only barely see from where they were. The spiraled slowly down and down and down until the speck grew into a moderately sized lake surrounded almost entirely by high cliffs. A waterfall tumbled down three sides. Kes found a spot not far from where the water flowed from the lake and put the ship down.

“Go ahead,” Kes said. “I’ll meet you outside. There’s a path you can follow straight to the lake. Unless it’s changed in the past few years, you’ll find a couple rocks near the water.”

Poe followed his father’s directions. It was warm enough this far from the temperate region where the base was located that Poe started sweating. He followed the narrow path toward the roar of the waterfalls and skirted the edge of the lake. Just as Kes had said there would be, there were two large, flat-topped rocks hanging out over deep blue of the lake. Poe left the one closest to the path for his father and stretched out on the furthest one.

The sound of the waterfalls should have been deafening, but something about the acoustics of this spot turned the waterfalls into a comforting hum. Poe could easily hear his father’s footsteps when Kes approached. He looked over to see Kes set a container down on the rock behind him, then sit and lean forward to kick off his shoes and socks. He met Poe’s eyes, grinned, and let his feet dangle in the lake. Satisfied that it was unlikely there was some creature with a taste for human flesh lurking under water, Poe pulled off his own shoes and let his feet sink into the water.

The lake was cold, wherever the water came from, but between the heat of the full sun and the contrast of the water, Poe felt comfortably warm. He lay back on the rock and closed his eyes to protect them from the bright light. He heard Kes’s clothes rubbing against the rock as he presumably did the same thing.

After a while, Kes spoke. “Your mother used to love it here. We only made here two or three times… We weren’t always stationed together, and when we were, we rarely had time off at the same time.”

“You don’t need to—“

“She always wanted to take you here. I know she didn’t talk a lot about what happened during the war, but she always said she wanted to take you here when you were older. Once you understood what the war had been about.”

Reluctantly, Poe opened his eyes. Kes had his eyes closed, his face tipped toward the sun and Poe was free to examine his father’s face without worrying about Kes seeing anything Poe didn’t want him to. “Why are you telling me this?” It had always been their unspoken rule that they never spoke about Shara except in vague, passing terms. Poe had been so young when she’d died, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t still twist the remnants of the vibroblade of grief her death had left in Poe’s heart.

“Because you’re my son. There was a moment only a few days ago when I realized I’d never taken you here and that now I might never have a chance. Because you need to know how _proud_ your mother would be of you if she could see you now.”

That old feeling Poe always felt when someone mentioned how proud Shara would be of him rose up in his chest again. It was a mixture of pride and heartache that always threatened to choke him. Normally he waved it off, making some joke about how she would have done it better and in half the time, but he was so tired of deflecting that he ended up shrugging and saying, “I don’t know if she’d feel that way now.”

Kes’s eyes opened at that, fixing on his son. “Of course she would. Shara would have been proud of you if you’d become a farmer, but look at you.”

Poe wanted to tell him that he _had_ looked at himself. Scars dotting his chest and arms, hollows in his cheeks, circles under his eyes. The near-constant tremor in his hands, the ball of ice that ate up his chest and stomach. The way he startled at the least of noises and that he needed his astromech droid to serve as a warning whenever anyone walked within an arm’s reach of him. There was nothing about him that the great and famous Shara Bey would have been proud of.

“You’ve become the best of everything she was. A brilliant commander. Your pilots will fly for you without question because they know you fight for them. You shine as brightly as she did when she fought.”

Poe squeezed his lips shut and tried not to think. Out of the corner of his eye, Poe saw Kes sigh, then stand up and pull the container to him. He sat back on the edge of the rock and popped the lid open.

“Rey told me you’d been eating fruit, so I had the droids pack a bunch of fresh fruit from Dantooine for you.”

For the first time in a lifetime, Poe realized he was hungry. Not a lot, but enough to entice him to accept a package of mixed fruits from Kes and to peel open the lid with something other than dread. He began picking his way through the food, conscious that his father must have been watching him. Kes’s own package contained a sandwich of some kind, and he finished that before he spoke again.

“Luke asked me to bring a cutting of the tree from Yavin to Ahch-To. I leave tonight, if you think you’ll be okay.”

He’d known Kes couldn’t stay forever, but somehow Poe had hoped that his father would be able to stay longer. Poe was fully grown and he didn’t need his father to hold his hand, but Kes was a familiar strength when Poe needed it, which was more often than he wanted it to be.

“I’ll be okay,” Poe said, biting into a sharply tart green fruit. “I’ve got my pilots, and Luke, and Rey. And Finn.”

Kes seemed to accept that, although Poe caught his father glancing at him throughout the rest of their meal. When they had both finished, Kes pulled his feet in and stood up. He tossed his empty package into the container, then slipped into his shoes and socks. “It’ll be dark soon. We should head back.”

Poe followed his father back to the ship and settled in to the co-pilot’s seat. He ran the preflight checks, but as soon as the ship was primed and ready to take off, he sat back and let Kes take control. Kes piloted the ship out of the atmosphere and toward the base. He sent a message to the base asking for one of the droids to pack his things and notifying Luke that he was going to leave as soon as he got back. He received an acknowledgement that his items were ready and Luke was waiting just as they reentered the atmosphere.

“You could come back to Yavin with me,” Kes offered as he brought _Shara_ in for landing. “I’m sure Leia would let you go.”

“I can’t right now,” Poe said, absently running his hands over the controls in front of him. “Later, maybe. Once I’m… better. I need what they have here for me.”

He could feel Kes looking at him, but Poe focused his gaze on the few people gathered just outside the _Shara_ ’s landing spot. He could make out Luke and General Organa standing together. Rey was probably the person near them, with Finn beside her. A droid, C-3PO if he wasn’t mistaken, stood by a small footlocker. There were a few other people he didn’t know, but as they approached, they appeared to be near his father’s age. Probably people Kes had served with in the Rebellion.

Poe stayed behind for a moment to finish landing procedures, then followed his father off. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Finn interrupted the conversation he’d been having with Rey to come to Poe’s side.

“I was worried,” Finn said. “I woke up and you were gone.”

“I couldn’t sleep. I wanted you to be able to rest.”

Finn gave him a calculating look, but Rey was already walking up to them. Kes was directing the droid—not C-3PO, although he was also trying to help—where to put his gear. All he’d brought with him had been a few changes of clothes, but with C-3PO’s help, it would take as long as if he had brought suitcases. Rey brushed her shoulder against Poe’s. He smiled at her.

It wasn’t until General Organa asked C-3PO to go help Chewbacca carry sensor equipment that Kes finally managed to corral the droid into doing what he wanted. He said brief goodbyes to the people who had gathered, then turned to Luke.

“It shouldn’t take me long to gather the cuttings and bring them to Ahch-To. You’re sure I’ll know where to plant them?”

“The coordinates I gave you will take you directly to the temple. From there, you’ll know. It’s good to have you back with us, Kes.”

General Organa stepped up next to Kes next, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Come visit us again in less dire times next time.”

Kes glanced over his shoulder at Poe. “I’ll do my best, Princess. I’ll be back once I’m finished with this errand.” Then he lowered his voice and said something loud enough for her ears only. When he pulled back, she gave him a sad smile and nodded.

“No, I appreciate it. Thank you, Kes. Have a safe trip. We’ll see you soon.”

With those goodbyes finished and the droid lumbering off _Shara_ , Kes turned to Poe. He gave him a brief hug, but said nothing of their conversation about Shara.

“Be safe, Poe.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Kes rolled his eyes at him, then turned to Finn. He gave him a lingering look, then held out his hand. Finn hesitated for a moment, then reached out to shake Kes’s hand. Again, Kes lowered his voice so only Poe, Finn, and Rey could hear him. “Take care of my son.”

“I will.”

Kes’s voice was a normal volume when he spoke again. “It was good to meet you, Rey. Keep an eye on the boys, will you? They need it.”

Rey laughed and nodded. “I’ll do my best, sir.”

Kes gave Poe a final goodbye hug, then headed for the ship. It was just full dark when the door shut behind him and after a moment, the _Shara_ lifted off the ground. Poe watched until the ship had disappeared into a speck of light in the sky, then turned back toward the base.

“Poe,” Luke called, stopping him in his tracks. Poe turned slowly back toward him.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night. Same place. 2300.”

It wasn’t a question, and Poe had the impression that Luke would send Rey after him if he didn’t show up, but Poe nodded anyway. “2300.”

“Are you hungry?” Finn asked, once Rey had trotted after her master. Poe shook his head. “Poe—“

“Finn, please. Not tonight. I just want to sleep. I’ve had food today.”

Poe didn’t know if it was the surprising raw desperation in his voice that convinced Finn or if it was something else, but Finn put his arm back around Poe’s shoulders and drew him close.

“Okay. We’ll sleep.”

Finn chatted while they walked, talking about what new thing Rey was learning that she’d shown him, what General Organa had said about this new planet she was thinking of sending Finn to, how many new people he was entitled to. All of it was interesting news, and most importantly none of it required anything but the occasional interested sound from Poe. Normally Finn called Poe on his lack of attention, but tonight he just talked and let Poe be. He wasn’t sure why Finn was willing to let him get away with silence, but it made the night easier. Poe changed into his sleeping clothes and dropped into bed at Finn’s side. He fell asleep to the sound of Finn explaining the argument two of his people had gotten into earlier that day.

 

_Poe was alone. He wasn’t on_ Suppression _, he knew that much. He also wasn’t on Dantooine or D’Qar. He was alone in a great blackness, surrounded by more blackness. A large shadow, blacker and emptier than the rest of the nothingness in which he stood, passed by him. It was round. A ball. It sucked in light from everywhere else. It sucked Poe in and left him standing in the middle of an empty plain. There were no trees or flowers, no buildings. Nothing that gave off any sense of_ life _. Only ugly brown dirt that had seen too many sets of feet._

_Light came from somewhere above him, but there was no sun or star giving it off. A diffuse yellow-white light that came from everywhere and nowhere at all. Poe turned, but the ground was the same everywhere he looked. As far as he could see. But then the ground bent upward revealing heads, faces, shoulders. Torsos. Hips. Legs. Feet. Slowly, in fits and starts, people appeared around him. His father stood there, face streaked with dirt and blood._

_Poe started toward him, but a hand had his wrist. Poe spun to rip himself free, but the woman standing there stopped him in his tracks. She held a finger to her lips, imploring him to keep silent. And Poe wasn’t sure he could have spoken if Grandel had threatened him with the interrogation droid again._

_Just days before her face had been blurred in his memory, but she stood in front of him now just as he’d seen her in old holos from the Rebellion. Young, maybe his age, with kind brown eyes, intelligence and passion sparking from them. Her scar along her right eyebrow was nearly obscured by tumbling brown curls._

_Shara Bey was beautiful and intimidating in a way Poe had never been intimidated by his mother before. She nodded over his shoulder toward Kes._

_Poe turned back and sound burst to life in his ears as though he’d been hearing it all along. Kes was screaming, reaching for Poe. Shara wouldn’t_ let go _and Poe could only stand there, straining against his mother’s immovable strength, until Kes dropped to his knees in the dirt, and the dirt reclaimed him._

_Then the screaming started again from all around him. Tal’dira burning in invisible flames, his skin sloughing off. Gavin on his knees, arms bound behind him, a bone showing through his upper arm, blood spurting from the artery there. Jessika and Snap silent but for broken, wretched choking noises, clutching at their throats as though they couldn’t breathe. Karé Kun writhing in the kind of pain that brought echoes of remembered agony to Poe’s chest._

_Poe wanted to scream, but his mother’s warning had stuck his voice in his throat. He could only pull against her hand, but nothing he did made any difference. One by one his friends sank back into the dirt as though they had never been._

_General Organa, Rey, Luke, Finn. Voices screaming all around him. And still Shara wouldn’t let go._

_Finally when only Poe remained, she released him. Poe stumbled forward, then spun back to face her. She was turning to dust before his eyes, falling away until she sank into the dirt and Poe was alone._

 

Poe only just remembered to stay still when he woke up. Finn had rolled over at some point during the night, but he would have noticed if Poe had thrown himself from the bed like he wanted to. Poe slipped from the bed as quietly as he could and dressed with hands that shook so bad he gave up entirely on his boots. He made it into the hallway and collapsed back against the wall, running his hands over his face. He tangled his fingers in his hair until the pain had grounded him enough to get him moving again.

He headed to the pilot’s wing, to the small room that would always be part of their territory. On-call pilots usually waited by their fighters, but if the weather was bad they were always given an indoor room to wait. It would be near the exit. They always kept it stocked for pilots just leaving or coming back.

Poe found the waiting room as abandoned as he’d hoped it would be. And, right where it had been on every other base he’d served on, Poe found the cabinet with a dozen bottles of alcohol. Most had already been opened and a few were almost empty, but a dark liquor near the front was unopened and full. He pulled it out, took off the top, and took a sip. A whiskey of some sort by the taste, but Poe just took another drink and sat at one of the tables with his back to the wall.

He had no real plan but to drink until his nightmare was gone. Until the echo of his mother’s hand on his wrist faded. He was well on his way there when he grew restless of the stifling silence of the call room. He shoved himself to his feet and, still nursing the bottle, headed out to the landing field. None of his pilots were due to be out right now, and this late at night—however late it was—the field should have been empty.

Which it was, Poe discovered once he got out there. He sat at one of the mechanic’s tables near _Black Two_. That was probably the right name for the X-wing he’d never get to fly. The table was blocked from wind by the curve of the base. He wondered who would take his place as head of Red and Blue Squadrons. Tal’dira had always been happy where he was. Gavin, maybe. Or Snap or Jessika. Anyone would be better than Poe, now.

Poe didn’t realize how long he’d been sitting and drinking until he heard a familiar piercing wail and then the sound of a door slamming shut. He flinched, nearly tipping the bottle over.

A hand appeared in his vision, grabbing the bottle by the neck and yanking it away. “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?”

Poe stood, staggering backward into the table. Snap caught Poe by the shoulder and kept him standing, although he wasn’t overly gentle about it. Then he shoved Poe straight back into the chair, running a hand through his hair in clear frustration. Snap looked for a moment like he was going to throw the bottle away, but finally he took a drink himself and Poe realized for the first time that the bottle, which hadn’t been small to begin with, was nearly empty. Snap put the bottle down well to the side and out of Poe’s reach.

“What did you think you were doing?” Snap asked more quietly. “We’ve been looking for you for almost an hour. Your stormtrooper is frantic. We were just about to wake up _Luke Skywalker_ to find you, and here you are. Drunk off your ass. Please tell me this bottle was open when you found it.”

Poe cringed and bowed his head, covering his face with his hands. He could hear the sound of the bottle sloshing again and then getting set back down on the far end of the table.

“Beebee, go get Finn.”

“No, don’t get Finn.”

“Beebee-ate, go.” The little droid beeped and rolled off. From his peripheral vision, Poe could see Snap crouch down in front of him. He put his hands on Poe’s knees. “I’m not just going to leave him panicking because for all he knows you’ve jumped off a cliff.”

“There are no cliffs near base.” S’far as he knew, anyway.

“Shut up. C’mon, Poe, did this help?”

Poe shook his head. He could already feel the headache building in his skull. Snap let out a quiet breath and a quieter curse.

“What would the pilots have thought if they found you here? A lot of kids that look up to you. If one of them had found you—“ Snap cut off. He ran a hand through his hair again, seizing a fistful in a moment of frustration. He rested both hands back on Poe’s knees. When he started again, his voice was quiet and gentle. “You need to go back to Kalonia. Finn thought you might have gone and gotten yourself hurt. I was coming out here to make sure your X-wing was still here.”

“Who is taking over as Black Leader?”

Snap sputtered. “What?”

“Black Leader. Who is taking over?”

Snap swore, shoving himself to his feet on Poe’s knees. Poe lifted his head far enough to watch his friend. Snap’s jaw was working as he paced the few steps the length of the table allowed. “Nobody! Nobody is taking over as Black Leader. That’s _your_ position. _You_ are Black Leader. _You_ fly _Black One_.”

“ _Black Two_.”

“I don’t care if you fly Black Thirty-two. We’ll fly under Tal’dira or Gavin, they’ll even fly under Jessika or me, but Poe, they trust Black Leader.” Snap reached for Poe’s arm and pulled him back to his feet. He slung Poe’s arm over his shoulder and began making his way back toward the base. “Let’s get you inside before anyone comes out here and sees you.”

They were met just inside by Finn and, much to Poe’s chagrin, Luke. Snap passed Poe off, murmuring something about having to get the trainees out of bed, leaving Luke and Finn to get Poe back in bed.

He fell asleep to the quiet murmur of Luke and Finn talking and the gentle warmth of Finn’s hand in his.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. It's been like six months since I updated. I'm still not happy with this chapter, but I owe you something.

Poe woke up to a splitting headache, a rush of nausea, and the distinct taste that could only be described as the feeling that he’d had dentistry performed by a rancor. A hand offered him a pair of small capsules and a glass of water.

“Captain Wexley suggested that we refuse you any medication to make you learn from your mistake,” Luke said dryly. “I convinced him that you had probably already learned your lesson.”

Poe didn’t risk nodding his head until he’d downed the pills and the water. The water washed away the taste in his mouth, then the nausea faded and finally the headache. But the pills couldn’t quite erase the gnawing guilt in his chest. He didn’t remember everything, but he remembered enough to make him feel sick in ways no hangover medication could cure. He did remember, vaguely, Snap hauling him to his feet. An exchange of words. The look on Snap’s face. There wasn’t much more than that.

“He’s gonna kill me.”

“Probably not,” Luke said, holding out his hand to help Poe sit up. A glance around the room confirmed that he’d been put to bed in his room, rather than the one he’d been sharing with Finn.

“Where’s Finn?”

“The Empire knew there had been a base on Dantooine. Leia knows we can’t stay here forever, or even for very long. She sent Finn and some of her other scouting teams out to look for other bases not long after you fell asleep. He should be back in a few hours. Do you feel ready to stand?”

The pill had done its work, and Poe gained his feet easily. He released Luke’s hand with a nod. Aside from some residual unease that was probably more to do with whatever memories he hadn’t formed last night than with the alcohol he’d imbibed, he felt as well as he had in days.

“Go get dressed. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.”

Once Luke was gone, BB-8 rolled out from beneath Poe’s bed and gave an aggrieved squawk. Poe opened his mouth to defend himself, but the little droid cut him off with what he could only describe as a tirade about his owner’s reckless, ridiculous, irresponsible behavior. He would have kept going if Poe hadn’t knelt at his side and put his hands on BB-8’s head to keep him still.

“Beebee, I’m sorry.”

Another tirade, intimating that how a droid felt about the whole thing was the least of Poe’s problems. Snap had kept the other pilots from finding out, but word was getting around that Poe wasn’t getting better. Then BB-8 offered two small, quiet beeps. Poe ran his hands along the smooth, cool metal that he knew as well as he’d known _Black One_. Whoever had repaired him after rescuing him from the debris field had done a good job. Poe couldn’t even find any scarring.

“I am so sorry.”

BB-8 nudged him gently, then rolled back, trilling that Poe had better get dressed and meet Luke. Poe ran his hand over BB-8 one last time and then stood to get dressed for the day. He pulled on his clothes blindly, grateful that regulation Resistance clothing didn’t offer him a lot of choice. When he’d been younger, a lifetime ago, the browns and greens had been endlessly boring, but now he hardly saw them anymore. He didn’t know if that was age or if the part of him that had once cared was gone.

He rubbed at a phantom ache in his wrist, patted BB-8 goodbye, and then headed out the door. The base was bustling, busier than Poe had ever seen it. Transport pilots ran past him from both directions. Ground troops stepped in rhythm after the pilots. Droids rolled here and there, some with packs in their arms and some carrying messages that weren’t important enough to earn comms privileges. For a moment, Poe felt like he was home again.

Then a sprinting soldier nearly collided with a droid and metal clanged to the floor, and cold terror washed over Poe’s entire body. Stars, BB-8 was right. He wasn’t getting better.

Tugging his jacket tighter around his shoulders even though the building was comfortably warm, Poe continued toward the cafeteria. It was nearly the time when most of the aides broke for lunch, but the room wasn’t overflowing yet. Luke had claimed a table near the corner, leaving the chair with its back to the wall open for Poe. He’d filled the table with a selection of fruits and familiar vegetables.

“Is there anything else you want?” Luke asked without turning at Poe’s approach.

Poe slid into the chair, deliberately not letting out a sigh of relief as the tension oozed out of him at the protected position. He surveyed the spread of food. “No, I… I think this is good.”

“Dr. Kalonia reminded me that while she’s pleased you’re eating, fruits alone are not enough to survive on. Eat up. Unless they’ve changed the side effects since I was young, you’re probably starving.”

Poe began picking at the food in front of him. Luke let him eat in silence, and it wasn’t until they both had finished and the cafeteria had filled up and begun buzzing with noise that Luke spoke again.

“I want you out of here, Poe.”

Positive he couldn’t have understood Luke correctly, Poe could only manage, “What?”

“I want you out of here,” Luke repeated, his eyes fixed on Poe. “Off the base. Off the planet, ideally. Take Finn or Captain Wexley or even Rey and your droid—if he’s anything like Artoo, he won’t deign to be left behind anyway. Get away from here for a while.”

“Master Skywalker—“

“Luke.”

“I can’t just leave. I have work to be doing here. Finn has work.”

Luke sat forward in his chair, folding his hands and resting his forearms on the table. “Finn has work, yes. But you don’t. You need to get away from everything for a while. I may have waited too long to intercede on your behalf. It’s a mistake I’ve made before, and not one I plan to let slide by again. Finn will be back,” he checked the chrono on the wall, “within half an hour. Pack. Leia’s cleared him for as long as you want him. I’ll release Rey from her training for a time if you’d rather she go with you. You can have whomever you want, Poe, but I want you off the base. Take a transport somewhere. Go to Yavin 4. Go to Jakku, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious.”

“What use am I to the Resistance on Yavin?”

Luke fixed his eyes on Poe’s face. There was no sympathy in his gaze, but there was no malice either, and that was the only thing that eased the sting of his next words. “What use are you to the Resistance here?”

Poe let out a sharp, shocked breath, but Luke wasn’t done.

“I’m doing this _because_ you’re so important to the Resistance. Your pilots, my sister. Staying here isn’t helping you, Poe. I want you out of here.”

Putting aside his impending exile, Poe let out a shaking breath. “Finn’s no pilot. And I can’t…” Poe only choked on his confession a little bit, “fly us anywhere.”

“I’ll arrange it.”

 

Three hours later, Poe was seated in the back of a confiscated Starhopper with BB-8 at his feet. Gavin had been coerced into piloting them to the coordinates Poe had given him. Snap followed along behind in another of the mismatched transports that made up much of the non-military part of the Resistance’s vehicles. Gavin had taken this assignment as any other and hadn’t made any comment about Poe’s inability to pilot himself. Maybe word of Poe’s fall had spread further than he’d initially thought it had. That was a sobering thought.

Finn seemed to have understood Poe’s mood. He put his hand on Poe’s knee and offered him a smile, but didn’t say anything.

“Hey, Poe?” Gavin called. “You sure you gave me the right coordinates? I’m not seeing anything.”

Poe squeezed Finn’s hand and stood, making his way to the cockpit. Leaning over Gavin’s shoulder, Poe spied the dot of blue surrounded by the deep green of forest. “There. Do you need to get your eyes checked in you old age, Darklighter? I’m not sure I want you running my pilots if you can’t see a lake.”

Gavin gave him a sideways look, but began spiraling down toward the dot. On one of the passes, Poe saw Snap’s transport following their descent.

“We’ll leave the Starhopper for you. Send us a message when you’re ready for us to get you.” Gavin settled the ship in nearly the same spot Kes had set his transport. Poe stepped back to give Gavin room to stand up. He rolled out his shoulders as he stood, tapping the button to open the door. Poe waited until he heard Finn’s footsteps fade outside.

“Gavin—“

Gavin shook his head, resting his hand briefly on Poe’s shoulder. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. We’ll be in contact through Beebee-ate if anything changes or if we need to get off planet fast. The General sent a crew to a couple planets to get things set up in case.”

He moved past Poe in the narrow hallway, speaking into a comlink. “I’m _coming_ , Snap. I still outrank you.”

Poe caught part of a snippy response on Snap’s end, but then Gavin was striding across the field toward the transport, and Finn was staring at the waterfall like he’d never seen anything like it before. Well, Poe reflected, he may never have.

Behind him, the transport’s engines kicked to life. Within moments, Snap and Gavin were gone, and Poe stepped up beside Finn, nudging him with his shoulder.

“This okay?”

“Okay?” Finn echoed. “Poe, it’s beautiful.”

Poe grinned up at him. “You think so? Dad brought me here the other day. He said he and Mom loved it and, I don’t know, I guess when Luke kicked me off the base, I thought we might as well go somewhere nice.”

Finn slung his arm over Poe’s shoulders. “Where do you want to lay out our gear?”

BB-8 squealed something Poe didn’t quite catch and took off toward the waterfalls. He stopped when he realized they weren’t following and beeped. That time Poe understood.

“He says he’ll find a place for us.”

Finn shouldered his bag—packed with an efficiency that Poe recognized as leftover from his time as a Stormtrooper, but he was wise enough not to bring it up—and started after the droid. Poe hefted his own bag, not much larger than Finn’s, and followed.

BB-8 led the way to the lake and then up the opposite shore from where Poe and Kes had spent the day. He rolled beneath a low overhang and stopped just inside, beeping in a very pleased way. Poe shot Finn a glance, then followed the droid inside.

It was easily large enough for Finn and Poe to stand together, just a little over Finn’s height and twice his length. The entire cavern was bathed in a greenish light from sunlight filtering through the green growth that hung over the mouth of the entrance. The floor was worn smooth, doubtless from centuries of animals finding sanctuary in here. Finn whistled softly and dropped his bag.

“How’d you find this?”

Poe waited until BB-8 finished his response, then translated. “He says he downloaded the readings my parents had taken when they first came here when I told him where we were going.” The droid whistled again. “He’s going to spend his time in the ship where he can charge, unless we need him. Go ahead, buddy. You can contact us if anything comes up.”

BB-8 whistled cheerfully and headed back out the way he’d come. Poe turned in a slow circle. There was no evidence animals had been in the cave at all recently.

“What do you think? We don’t have to stay here.”

“I don’t want to offend your droid,” Finn murmured.

“He’s a droid,” Poe said, bending to unroll his sleeping bag. It was one of the all-terrain ones, more bed than sleeping bag, and Poe was glad he’d opted for that instead of a lighter one if they were going to be sleeping in a cave. “You can’t offend a droid.”

“Coulda fooled me. He can sound pretty offended.”

Poe finished straightening his sleeping bag and then turned to face Finn. He was standing beneath the opening in the roof, gazing up at the trees they could see overhead. Poe went to him, running his fingertips over the shadows the tree’s branches cast on Finn’s face.

“Hey,” Poe whispered once Finn looked down at him. “I’m sorry.”

A brief frown crossed Finn’s face. “Sorry? For what?”

“I haven’t been a very good friend. Or… anything else. This is still new to you and I should be doing a better job—“

Finn kissed him, one broad hand gripping Poe’s hip, the other cupping his cheek. Poe let himself melt into the kiss, catching at whatever part of Finn’s back he could hold, pulling him closer.

“I’m pretty good at taking care of myself,” Finn said. “We’ll figure it out. We escaped from a Star Destroyer together. This can’t be any harder than that.”

Compared to love, Poe thought, it was sometimes easier to escape from a Star Destroyer. But he didn’t say it. He folded himself closer to Finn, burying his face against the side of Finn’s neck. “Just let me be sorry for a little while.”

Finn held Poe in place with one arm. “Okay.”

Finally Poe drew in a deep breath and stepped away. “Do you want to go swimming?”

“Swimming?”

“Yeah, swimming. You do know how to swim, right?”

Finn nodded, looking toward the water sparkling behind Poe. “I know how to swim. They taught us as part of our survival training. I just didn’t realize it was something people did for… fun.”

“I can’t believe the First Order could even take the fun out of swimming. C’mon. Let’s go.”

He kept Finn’s hand in his, enjoying the warmth of his skin, and pulled him along until he reached the edge of the lake. He stooped to touch the water. It was cooling, but still warm enough for a quick swim. He kicked off his shoes and let go of Finn to pull off his shirt and pants, gesturing for Finn to do the same.

Poe waited until Finn had folded his clothes and set them in a nice, regulation pile, then he stepped in close and ran his hand down the muscled planes of Finn’s chest. Finn drew in an unsteady breath but stayed still, his eyes fixed on Poe’s face.

Poe stepped back, balanced on the balls of his feet at the edge of the water, and offered when he hoped was a roguish grin. “With water like this, you’ve gotta just dive in. Ready?”

“Wait, Poe, isn’t it—“

Poe leaned back and let himself tumble backward into the water. The water was _cold_ , but it felt real in a way the ice in his chest had never felt real. He kicked his legs to bring himself back up to the surface and grinned at Finn.

“It’s not that bad. Come on.”

Finn stepped off the rocks and disappeared beneath the water. As soon as his head broke the water again, Poe was rewarded with a yelp.

“It’s _cold_!”

Poe laughed, swimming closer to Finn with a few slow and lazy strokes. He pulled Finn in until their upper bodies were pressed together beneath the water. His skin was warm and Poe kissed his cheek.

“Is that better?”

“Maybe a little.”

Poe pressed a few quick kisses to Finn’s lips, chin, nose, and then swam away, floating on his back and gazing up at the blue sky. He’d expected Finn to follow him, but when he glanced over, the other man had his elbows resting on the rock ledges and was watching Poe. He waved a hand.

“I’m fine here.”

So Poe let him be, trusting him to make his own decisions, and spent the next while lazing in the lake with his eyes closed more often than open. Eventually, though, the lake cooled enough that even he had to leave. Finn was sitting on the edge of the rocks now, his face tipped up toward the sun.

As quietly as he could, Poe swam up to Finn and rested his right hand on Finn’s knee to keep himself steady. Finn blinked down at him, a faint smile on his lips. Poe ran his left hand up Finn’s leg from ankle to knee, watching Finn’s reaction. The other man’s eyes closed and Poe took that as permission. He leaned in to kiss the inside of Finn’s knee and then a few centimeters higher. Finn’s legs spread a little further and Poe kissed him again, his tongue darting out to lap at the soft skin of Finn’s inner thigh. Another kiss higher, just a bit of suction, and Finn let out an unsteady breath, one hand catching at Poe’s hair.

Poe kept his lips where they were, nipping gently at Finn’s skin just to feel the muscles bunch beneath his lips. The hand tightened in his hair and Poe hissed. Finn started to let go, but Poe shook his head and Finn fell still.

“You don’t—“ Finn cut off when Poe sucked at the skin on his thigh again. He drew a sharp breath and tried again. “You don’t have to try to… to seduce me. It’s okay.”

Something icy clamped its hand on Poe’s heart and he pulled back, frowning. “It’s okay?”

“You can’t think I’d ever say no to you. You don’t have to try so hard.”

Poe caught hold of the rock ledge to the side and pulled himself over to it, then out of the water. He held a hand out to Finn and pulled him to his feet.

“Shit, Finn, that’s…” Poe scrubbed at his face with his palms. “I’ve fucked this up. I’m so sorry. Shit.”

“No, it’s okay—“

“It’s not!” Poe snapped and he _felt_ Finn flinch back from him. Poe took a breath and moderated his tone. “I’ve been so…” he gestured to his head “…wrapped up in myself I haven’t thought about what this means. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I haven’t slept—had sex—with other people before you. Because it was fun. Because we were alive. Because someone else wasn’t. But we both knew what it was. I’ve never told someone I loved them because I wanted to get in their bed, Finn, and I never will.” He met Finn’s eyes and tried to will him to understand. “I’ve screwed this up. This, us, whatever it is, it’s not just fucking around. Not from me, anyway.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you were,” Finn said and if there were any part of Poe’s heart that hadn’t shattered up until this moment, it was gone now. “I would do whatever you asked of me.”

“That’s not how this works,” Poe said. “We’re equals in this, you and me. You can tell me no about _anything_. Sex, dinner, whose bed we sleep in, if we sleep in the same bed.”

“I wouldn’t want to.”

Poe dropped his head, letting out a pained breath. He’d fucked this up so much. He’d been focused on his own agony and somehow he’d missed this. He was _good_ at flirting and at relationships. But he’d completely overlooked that Finn had never done this before. That Finn had been kept from everything normal about the world.

“I’m so sorry,” Poe said. “Can we just… Let’s just start over. I mean, not from the beginning,” he added hastily. “Just from…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, wincing as the tangled curls caught between his fingers. Finn eased Poe’s grip on his hair and took his hand.

“Poe Dameron, I love you.” He brushed his knuckle across Poe’s temple. “And we’ll figure this out.”

Poe squeezed Finn’s hand. “I love you.”

There was a moment where Poe could have pushed, and Poe had always been the kind to push and keep pushing until something changed. It was what made him a great pilot and a better rebel, a fearlessness and disdain for consequences, but this time he didn’t. He stepped back, nodded, and turned toward the pile of their gear. “Hungry?”

A look crossed Finn’s face, one Poe hadn’t seen before. It was a careful smoothing of any expression until Finn’s face was clear. It was a soldier’s face. One Poe didn’t like—didn’t like that he had put it there. But before he could try to stop it, fix it, Finn was nodding. “Yeah, what’d you bring?”

Poe shrugged, bending to dig in the bag. “I didn’t pack it. Gavin said Luke had it ready for him when he got there.”

The provisions were standard and unappetizing, at least as far as Poe was concerned, but Finn grabbed the ration bar with something akin to glee. Poe nibbled his way through a tray of sliced fruits. They sat in silence until the horizon began to dim. Once or twice, Finn had looked like he was about to say something, but he always fell silent at the last moment, rubbing his hands on his thighs.

It wanted to be a companionable silence, but it was thick and cloying, sticking in Poe’s throat when he tried to break it. Eventually he rose and began getting ready for bed. Finn followed his lead, even though he’d always needed less sleep than Poe did. Some sort of Stormtrooper training—or possibly engineering. That thought turned Poe’s stomach, but he couldn’t stayed silent.

He stayed silent while they dressed; he stayed silent while Finn laid out their blankets; he stayed silent while he climbed into bed; he stayed silent while Finn slid in behind him and held him tight. The position was familiar now, and despite himself, Poe found himself easing back into Finn’s arms and falling asleep.


End file.
